Scrapbook Layouts from this Weekend

Despite the beautiful weather here in Indiana this weekend, I was able to do a little bit of scrapbooking! I actually had some extra incentive to make my layouts. Last week, I talked to Susan Luke at PaperCraftCentral regarding the possibility of guest posting on her site. To my delight, she agreed! In addition to the post I wrote for her site -  Six Secrets for Simple Scrapbook Layouts -  I wanted to provide pictures as examples for the method I discuss in the article.

I made four different layouts that I plan to use for my oldest son's scrapbook album. Here they are:

If you want to learn more about how I put these together, make sure you check out the post on Susan's site. Basically, I pick out paper, card stock, and embellishments, and instead of coming up with new ideas for every layout I make, I make several using the same selections.

For these, I used my Cricut Expression to cut the stars used on each of the pages. The rest of the elements were cut using my paper trimmer. The titles are chipboard stickers from American Crafts. The sketches that  I used were my own (you can download a free sampler pack of them from my Easy Scrapbook Sketches website!).

I have a lot more crafting to do in the coming weeks. I need to make several birthday cards. My oldest son is also getting confirmed, so I want to make something for him and his classmates to commemorate the occasion. The school year will also be wrapping up in May, which means that I need to make gifts for my boys' teachers, and of course, there are always graduations too! I will attempt to take pictures of everything I make so that I can share them with you here. I would also love to hear what projects you are planning to work on too!

Cricut Flower Card

This week's challenge at Fantabulous Cricut is to make a project with at least three flowers. I have a card that I recently made for my mom that meets the criteria for the challenge, so I'm going to share it with you today:

The flowers on this card were made using the accessory creative feature on the Cricut Create a Critter cartridge (page 62 in the handbook). The sentiment is from the Cricut Birthday Bash cartridge. This card was the first project I made with my Sew Easy Stitch Piercer from We R Memory Keepers -- I love the look of stitching, and one of these days I am going to spoil myself with a sewing machine, but for now, I use either the Sew Easy or do faux stitching with a pen.

Thanks for looking, and don't forget to hop over to Fantabulous Cricut to check out all the great flower projects!  :)

Cricut Create a Critter Bookmark

Today, I want to share with you a bookmark that my six-year old and I made with the turtle cutout from the Cricut Create a Critter cartridge.

The paperclip is mega-sized - it's almost four inches long! If I remember right, we found packs of these paper clips at Office Depot.

My little guy and I plan to make a bunch of these for his classmates. They are a lot of fun, and look super cute! You can't see it in the picture, but in addition to the circle that the turtle is sitting on, there is another circle glued to the back of the paper clips. I used adhesive dots to attach the circles to the clip, and they seem to be holding very well. When we get the rest of them made, I will be sure to post them here.

Thanks for looking! :)

Cricut Birthday Bash Money Card

Howdy! Today's post is going to be short and sweet --  it's Sunday evening, and I still have a lot to do, including getting the kiddos to bed for school in the morning! This weekend I made a birthday "cash" card for my niece using the Birthday Bash Cricut cartridge. Here's a pic of the card...

Inspiration for this card came from two different places.

First, Cardz TV had a fun "Let's Get Sketchy" card challenge. The sketch that we had to use was this:

I wanted to participate in the challenge, and I loved the sketch and all the inspiration from the design team at Cardz TV, so that was my first source of inspiration.

My second was a card from Hero Arts that I pinned ages back on Pinterest. Here is the Hero Art's card:

I thought it was clever how the twenty dollar bill was wrapped around the candle instead of being tucked inside the card. I often give money to my nieces and nephews for gifts, and I thought this would be a fun way to surprise them. So there you have it!

Supplies for this project:

• Birthday Bash Cricut cartridge (Used for the three candles. I modified the cut quite a bit, cutting off the "candle wax" and not making all the layers)
• Die Cuts with a View Celebration Stack (for patterned paper)
• Card stock from my stash
• Fiskars Threading Water Punch
• Memento Rhubarb Stalk Ink (for inked edges on candle flames)
• Two paperclips (to hold the money candle to card)
• Adhesive pop dots (to adhere other two candles to card)

Thanks for looking!