Creative Memories 25% off cartridges and nearly everything else - five days only!

Reminisce Accents

Today I have an assortment of sales to tell you about.  I know, we shopped all through the holidays, but there are some great deals to be had for just a limited time and I wanted to make sure you didn't miss a chance to get some bargains.

Reminisce Accents

 # 1 - Creative Memories 25% off Sale

Creative Memories has been having an album sale with 20% off most albums and StoryBooks and 40% off on select PicFolio albums (the slide-in page photo albums).  This sale is running until the 26th of January.  Yesterday afternoon I got an email announcing another special 5 day sale - 25% off nearly everything Creative Memories sells (digital artwork downloads are not included).  This sale started this morning (January 11) and runs until Sunday, January 15th.

If you have been thinking about buying any of the Creative Memories Cricut cartridges, this is the best price ever offered for these cartridges.  They normally sell for $55 and will be $41.25 in the sale.  There is a minimum shipping fee of $8.50 so if you can order a few cartridges at once (maybe get together with a friend to order) you will save by spreading out the shipping fee.

I know that many of you probably have friends or relatives who are Creative Memories consultants.  I don't want to interfere with any existing relationship you have with a consultant.  However, if you don't know anyone local to you who sells Creative Memories, I would be very happy to help you with any questions.  If you live in the US, you can order these cartridges from my Creative Memories personal website and have them shipped directly to your address. If you are in another location, I may be able to refer you to someone who can help you in your location so send me an email and I'll see if I can get you a referral.  All of the cartridges are located on THIS PAGE of my personal website.

The six Creative Memories cartridges are:  Reminisce Accents, Cheerful Seasons, Stork's Delivery, Traveler, 'Tis the Season and This & That (new this month).

You can see the books for Reminisce Accents, Cheerful Seasons and Stork's Delivery in the Cricut cartridge library (just click on the names to go to the booklets).   I posted photos of the book for the Traveler cartridge HERE and for the 'Tis the Season cartridge HERE.  The book for This and That is available to view HERE.

In the description for each cartridge there is a link to click to view the full look book - it may take a short while to load.

I have added some images of projects that I have made using the Creative Memories cartridges.  You can find projects on my blog by using the search box at the top left corner of the page or looking at the labels in the right side column. 

'Tis the Season

Reminisce Accents and Cheerful Seasons

Here are some more - you should be able to click each image to go to the full post about each project.

#2  - Blitsy is Back

After  an extended sale of all of the deals since the site began, Blitsy had a few hiccups in starting up again but they are back with lots of new items.  Recent additions include Colorbox ink pads and reinkers, Annie's Attic Books, a large assortment of books from Design Originals about Zentangles, stamps from Teresa Collins, Jenni Bowlin and 7gypsies, Tattered Angels Glimmer Glam and Glaze and more!

Blitsy offers new items for sale three times a week.  Each sale lasts for one week and new items are posted around 10 a.m. Central Time on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I am excited to see what will be added today!

Here is my referral link that you can use to join the site.  http://blitsy.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/989/

The site is a private membership site and membership is free.  Once you are a member, you can get your own special code to refer your friends and family.  When they make their first order, you will get a $10 credit to spend on one of your orders.  If you are on Facebook, you can also become a "fan" of the Blitsy page and you will get a code for 10% off your first order.

Thanks for using my LINK to join.  I think you will like the items they offer.  I have ordered several times and the orders all arrived quickly and were packed well.


#3 - Lettering Delights Dollar Days end Thursday

The Lettering Delights dollar days sale ends tomorrow.  Most items are just $1 (Graphic sets, fonts, alphabets, clip art, paper packs, doodlebats, candy wraps, etc.) and the Cut-its and SVGs are 50% off (these can be used with many die cutting machines but not the Cricut unless you have third party software purchased before the lawsuit settlements).

If you are a fan of the Create A Critter cartridge, you will love these cute holiday versions of some of the animals by the same designer, Nancy Kubo.  There are also a lot of sets by Sheri Berry Designs that are similar to the Snow Angel Imagine cartridge that she designed.  These were offered in a bundle but with the sale they are less expensive to buy individually.

I use a lot of the Lettering Delights graphics with my Creative Memories StoryBook Creator software (this is also on sale for 25% off until the 15th).  I can also cut the cuttable files with my Silhouette machine.  To get an additional discount, you can "buy" the monthly freebie first and when your confirmation email arrives there will be a code for 25% off your next order.


Whew!  If you made it to the end of this post, congratulations!  I hope you enjoyed checking out some of the projects I linked - you may have missed them the first time around...

Have a great Wednesday!

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The Eve of Christmas Eve

I hope that all of your holiday preparations are coming together nicely.  I still feel like I am playing catch-up after our trip last month but I will get it all done! 

Sales, Sales, Sales...

Just when we have so many extra things to do it seems that all of the stores are having pre-Christmas sales.  I used to enjoy shopping after Christmas for bargains on holiday items but I think there probably won't be any left - many places have already marked them down 50, 60 and even 70%.

Even if you don't have time to get out to the stores you can do some shopping online - so here is a bit of enabling...

Blitsy offers new items for sale three times a week.  So far they have had a great assortment of quality craft items at good prices.  (Tim Holtz, Spellbinders, LaBlanche stamps, 7 Gypsies, Tattered Angels, Xyron, 3M adhesive tape and pink tape gun, Zutter (Bind-it-All, DreamKutz), Sizzix dies, Smooch, Ranger Ink products (including Stickles and Liquid Pearls), Little Yellow Bicycle kits - you just never know what you will find).   Each sale lasts for one week and new items are posted around 10 a.m. Central Time on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 

Here is my referral link that you can use to join the site.  http://blitsy.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/989/

The site is a private membership site and membership is free.  Once you are a member, you can get your own special code to refer your friends and family.  When they make their first order, you will get a $10 credit to spend on one of your orders.  If you are on Facebook, you can also become a "fan" of the Blitsy page and you will get a code for 10% off your first order.

Thanks for using my LINK to join.  I think you will like the items they offer.  I have ordered several times and the orders all arrived quickly and were packed well.  

Lettering Delights  just announced a dollar days sale.  Most items are just $1 (Graphic sets, fonts, alphabets, clip art, paper packs, doodlebats, candy wraps, etc.) and the Cut-its and SVGs are 50% off (these can be used with many die cutting machines but not the Cricut unless you have third party software purchased before the lawsuit settlements).

If you are a fan of the Create A Critter cartridge, you will love these cute holiday versions of some of the animals by the same designer, Nancy Kubo.  There are lots of new items and some that are particularly nice for the holidays.  There are also a lot of sets by Sheri Berry Designs that are similar to the Snow Angel Imagine cartridge that she designed.  These were offered in a bundle but with the sale they are less expensive to buy individually.

I use a lot of the Lettering Delights graphics with my Creative Memories StoryBook Creator software.  I can also cut the cuttable files with my Silhouette machine.  I didn't see an end date for the sale listed but the email did say that they won't be having dollar days in 2012 so this might be a good time to pick up the sets that you want.  To get an additional discount, you can "buy" the monthly freebie and when your confirmation email arrives there will be a code for 25% off your next order.

Finally, I want to let you know that Creative Memories will have be having a year end sale on December 28 and 29th.  There will also be an album sale in January.  I'll update with the details after Christmas.

The design at the top of this post is a screen shot of a file I created with the Silhouette software.  I haven't had a chance to try cutting it yet.  I am wondering how many of you have a Silhouette or the new Cameo machine and would be interested in the files I have been designing...

It's raining here but still no sign of snow...it will be funny if we have a year with a White Halloween and a Green Christmas!


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Christmas Lights and Photography

 

When we got out the trees for the back deck this year, we discovered that they would not light up anymore.  These are the pre-lit metal trees that you can find at most drugstores and chain stores.  I came across the 90% off sale at CVS one year after Christmas and bought a few (I just can't resist a bargain!).  The trees have been subjected to extreme weather conditions for several years, so it was inevitable that they would "die" eventually.  Rather than toss them out, my husband had the great idea to keep the trees and just wrap some new lights on them.  We chose to use more of the super energy efficient LED lights that we have been using on the back fence and deck railings for several years.

I have been experimenting with taking photos of the lights and the trees.  I often turn off the flash on my camera but then I find that my photos are sometimes blurry.  I finally decided to get out my tripod and do a few experiments with the lighting and camera settings.

These photos of the small tree in our back hallway were all taken using a tripod and no flash with the overhead light turned off.  During the holidays, I keep the overhead light off most of the time and this tree serves as the light for the hallway.

To add even more light, I filled a large glass vase with some white lights and placed it in the base of the table, with some of the lights nestled around the vase on the outside.

I got this vase at Costco several years ago - you can often see similar ones there for fairly low prices.  If you are lucky, you might find something like this at a rummage sale or in a thrift shop.

The tree and the lights below it make a lovely glow.  Since we generally enter the house through the garage this is the first thing that we see.  As Christmas gets closer and we have more company I put out some of our favorite candies on this table.  I decided to try to take some photos of the candy dishes.

Here is the first photo I took of the candies on the table.  This was taken with the ceiling lights on and the flash turned off.  The slow shutter speed needed for natural light makes it difficult to hold the camera perfectly still long enough and the photo is blurry.

Using the flash gives a bright and sharper photo but the image is a bit harsh and flat looking.

When I used the tripod with the flash turned off, I got this image - the items are in focus and the light is much prettier.  You can see that there are no harsh shadows when you compare this to the flash photo just above.  The tree lights also have a pretty glow around them.

Here is a close up example - candy in natural light, no flash, hand held camera - blurry photo (it might be less blurry if you have steadier hands - not all of my photos without flash turn out this blurry).

Flash used, in sharp focus but the colors are washed out and there are reflections of the flash on the foil wrappers.

With the tripod and no flash I got a much prettier and more realistic image.  The candies are in focus and the reflections on the wrappers are from the lights on the tree.

Since I had the tripod out, I decided to try some outdoor photos.  It was rather chilly so I didn't take very many but I am planning to bundle up and take more photos of our house and the decorations in our neighborhood with my tripod.  This is a view from the lawn, looking back toward the house and the trees on the deck.

This was taken from the far corner of the lower deck and you can see some of the lights on the lower fence in the lower left corner.

These are the lights on the lower fence, taken from the deck - I really like the clear jewel colors of the LED lights and they are so much more energy efficient than the old style lights.  I don't particularly care for the white LEDs (they are not as warm as the old fashioned white lights) but I think the colored lights are very pretty.

Using the tripod makes such a difference because the shutter can be open for a long time with no motion blurring.  I think this photo took about eight seconds of exposure.  I like the way the landscape lighting on the tree in the center also lights up the tall tree above.

This photo also shows the landscaping lights along with the holiday decorations.

This is one of my favorites.  The reflection of the lights strung on the inside of the railing makes such a pretty glow on the slats.

Here I cropped in on a small section of the railing - wouldn't this make an interesting background paper?

I have had a tripod since high school when I got my first "good" camera.  I used it a lot but then fell out of the habit.  It really is not much trouble to set it up and I am looking forward to trying more low light photos with the tripod.

On the Craft Gossip site I saw a link to a blog with some more information about shooting photos of your Christmas tree.  Click HERE to go to the August Tea Photography blog to read Rachel's helpful post.

Just a couple more things to mention today...

It's Monday, so there will be new sales posted on Blitsy.  They are having a "Race to 20,000" on the site right now.  When the 20,000th member joins that person and the person who referred them will each get a $200 gift card to spend on Blitsy.

So far the items for sale have been great with lots of Tim Holtz, Spellbinders, Ranger products, Zutter, 3M ATG gun and LaBlanche stamps!  If you haven't joined this free membership site yet, here is my link that you can use to sign up - there is no cost or obligation for you to sign up. 

http://blitsy.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/989/ 

After you join, you can refer your friends and family - go to the "invites" page to get your link and you may earn some credits to use for shopping on the site.  Sales last for a week (while supplies last) and new items are posted on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and 10 a.m. Central Time.  If you become a "fan" of Blitsy on Facebook, you can get a code for 10% off your first order - on top of the great prices they have already!

I'll be stalking the site at 10 a.m. Central to see what new items are offered today - and may be placing my third order!

Lettering Delights - new Bundle 

If you like the style of the Cricut Imagine "Snow Angels" and "Nursery Tales" cartridges, you might want to take a look at a new bundle from Lettering Delights with artwork by the same designer, Sheri Berry.

There are cupcake wrappers, a paper pack, and alphabet and four graphic sets (labels, borders, ornaments and snowflakes) in the bundle - all for $20.  You can also take $5 off an order of $20 or more with the code "snowflake."

Just click on the name to see everything in the Holiday Frosting Bundle.

My "to do" lists are getting a bit shorter but I still have some more decorating, shopping and wrapping to do.  How are your holiday preparations coming along?  I hope you have a great day and can cross some more off of your lists by tonight!

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