Celebrate the Occasion Challenge #16

For this week's challenge at Celebrate the Occasion, the theme is School's Out (must use an apple). I decided to make my kids' teacher gifts since we only have a couple more weeks until school's out! I'm having kind of mixed feelings about that, on one hand I love having my kids around and it will be great having them home, but on the other hand my time is definitely cut short keeping them busy! I do a calendar every year with our summer activities on it, so they still have some kind of schedule and they love running in every morning to see what we have planned for the day so that will be fun :) We do cooking day, craft day, field trip day, etc. so I'm sure I'll be posting some of our projects too!

I found these cute little notebooks at Target for $1 each and then I decorated the front with the little quote and apple. They were fun to make and I hope the teachers find them useful. They did such a great job and my kids had a great year, so I'm truly grateful for that! Bring on the summer! :)

Challenges:
The Paper Variety - tutti fruiti

Have a great day!

Retirement Giraffe gift card holder.

This week on Celebrate the Occasion was the theme retirement. I used a Create a Critter Cricut cart. and cut out the cute giraffe. I put it on a Toilet paper roll flattened, and covered in cute paper. I put the eyelets at the bottom of the toilet paper roll so that it would keep its shape. It is now the perfect place to insert a tag cut on the cricut using Tags, Bags, Boxes and more. This little tag holder is a perfect fit for a GIFT CARD!! Who doesn't love a gift card?? I just printed out the saying, "It has been a LONG time coming.' Because giraffes have LONG necks, and retirement seems to take forever, hee hee.
The circle card was store bought that chape and I embossed it using my cute sizzix purse boutique embossing machine. The paper with the spots is SEI. The inside of the card says, Happy Retirement. The congrats ribbon is ffrom Martha Stewart. This would also make a cute congrats card.
There you have it. Now go to Celebrate the Occasion and see what yummies the design team have in store for you :)

Jazz Bear

One of my favorite things about going to watch the Utah Jazz games is the Jazz bear, he's just so energetic, acrobatic, and great! So when I saw that Cooking with Cricut was having a Cele"bear"ation blog hop, I decided to make this layout with the bear that steals the show :)

I used the bear from the Create a Critter cart (my absolute favorite!) and the glasses are from the giraffe on that cartridge. The basketball jersey and headband are from the Everyday Paper Dolls cart. I printed off the Jazz logo and stuck it to the jersey for a final touch.

Have a great day!

Dragonfly Birthday

The rain has decided to keep going through this week, but I'm still feeling springy so I decided to make this happy little dragonfly & flower birthday card!

I used stickles on the wings and bow plus added some little rhinestones with my i-rock tool to give some more sparkle to the dragonfly.


I dry embossed the flowers and inked them up so you could really see the pattern on them.

Here are the challenges that inspired me:
Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge Blog - anything goes
Paper Sundaes - birthday
Birthday Sundaes - 3 circles
Crafty Creations - flowers, patterned paper, ribbon
Play Date Cafe - flowers
Card Makin' Mamas - Recipe, 1 image, 2 patterned papers, 3 different types of embellishments

Have a great day!

Thankful Thursday

Welcome to the Crazy About Cricut Thankful Thursday challenge!! The challenge this week was to honor someone special with a display, like a banner, wall hanging, home decor, or album. Seeing how Memorial Day is just around the corner, I wanted to honor all the wonderful & dedicated servicemen and women we have in our country. They sacrifice so much for our safety and freedom, I just felt that I needed to do something to recognize that. My brother in law is one of the men in Baghdad helping with their rebuilding efforts, so I hope this honors him in some small way.

I liked the idea of subway art home decor for Memorial Day/4th of July, so I decided to make my own! I just used some different fonts in Publisher and arranged them as well as I could. I printed it out on vellum and then used patterned paper with flags on it for my background. My kiddos even learned to crackle with this project! We took a $3 Walmart frame and it turned out pretty well for their first attempt :)

We had to add some stickers to make the frame a little more colorful, of course! My son helped me pick these K & Company Americana collection 3D stickers and we arranged them on the corners.
Don't forget to head over to Crazy About Cricut and check out all the awesome Design Team projects and enter your family's project! You can enter to win an AMAZING prize pack from Post-It!! Have a great day!

Additional Challenges:
The Paper Variety - use stars
Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge Blog - anything goes

Celebrate the Occasion Challenge #14

The challenge at Celebrate the Occasion this week was to make an Anniversary project. Well I must confess, usually I'm not that consistent at giving out anniversary cards to my parents, in-laws, and grandparents all of whom deserve a great congratulations for sticking together through the good times and bad all these years :) So this challenge was great for me because we're coming up on some anniversaries soon in my family and now I'll be prepared!

For this card, I used a few different patterned papers and then for the embellishment, I stamped the flower, used liquid glass to give some dimension to the dots, then glued a spiral copper paper clip to the center and used it to anchor my twine to the card. I don't usually go for just black & white, but it seemed to really work here.



Make sure you join us this week at Celebrate the Occasion for this fun challenge and to check out all the fabulous work from the rest of the awesome Design Team!! All you need to do is create a card, layout or project and post it by Sunday, May 22nd, 11:59pm (EST). The winner will be selected and entered into their monthly drawing! The grand prize for May is the "SPRING HOLIDAY CARDS" cricut cartridge!!!! Have a great day!

Love to Crop- Amy Thank you

Paper Panther here with my awesome gift Amy from www.lovetocrop.com sent!! THANKS AMY :)

Easy Wedding Card

First, my card. Glittery is an understatement. I really wanted this card to shine. It is a 6x6 card, but with the scalloped edge it is a little bigger. The shapes are all from a sticker collection: The ribbon, which says BEST WISHES, is from Martha Stewart. The white glitter paper is just for the picture background and is not attached to the card. This card was fast and easy and sparkles just as much as the bride should sparkle on her wedding day :)

Celebrate the Occasion has their weekly challenge up again, and this week it is all about the love...and the ribbon. A wedding card with ribbon is this weeks challenge. So, what are you waiting for, spread the love and enter!

Go to Celebrate the Occasion and see what the amazing design team has come up with to inspire you. :) And while you are at it, think back on your good wedding memories.

I am in my second marriage, and as horrible as my first marriage was, my second is equally as fabulous. It is funny how life works out sometimes. Now, I don't normally do this, but it is my 7 year anniversary coming up and I wanted to post some cheesy pictures of my family for you. Here I am with the man of my dreams. He is 11 years older than I am and absolutely my best friend. The only seven year itch we are feeling is the need for a family vacation!

Here we are with my flower girl. Isn't she adorable?? She is my oldest child, and here she is 3 years old. They became instant pals the second they met and she still adores him.

A new happy family.

And here we are this year, this month. 7 years and 4 kids. My oldest is 10, my son is 6, my second to youngest daughter is 4 and my baby is 2. LOVE THEM!! (yes, we had 3 kids in 3 years- 2 of them surprises- the best kind)
And here is a picture of dear hubby and I the other day. We went to a farm, so of course we had to wear cowboy hats :)

We look older and we are more tired than we used to be, but we have a blast trying to manage it all. Family is the most amazing accomplishment I have ever done- now if I could just survive it we'll all be doing good! LOL. I hope you have an amazing day, and hug your close ones a little closer today. Time goes by way to fast!

(For more about Paper Panther, aka, Lillian J. Banks, visit her blog)

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all you beautiful moms out there! My 9 year old daughter brought home this beautiful card the other day for Mother's Day, she wrote a great poem to me and it was so sweet :) I told her about the card kid challenge at Card Makin' Mamas and she was so excited for me to enter her fun card! She used corn syrup, food coloring, and a paintbrush to make this gorgeous card, how creative is that! Thanks Boo! :)

Flowers for Grandma

Welcome to Crazy About Cricut Thankful Thursday!! The challenge this week was to make a project for Mother's Day, so when I found this cute cutting file at Cooking with Cricut, I knew what I was going to do. Every day they are giving away a free cutting file or digistamp, so be sure and get over there and grab your freebies! I cut the basket out of Bazzill embossed cardstock and then I tied a pretty yellow ribbon to the handle.

I cut out these awesome flowers and then spritzed them with glimmer mist, love that stuff! I added a little heart brad to the center of the smaller flowers just to change it up a bit. The dimensionals really make the flowers pop off the page!

The prize this month will be from our newest sponsor Post-it! Here's the awesome prize they provided:

Don't forget to head over to Crazy About Cricut and check out all the wonderful Design Team projects and enter your family's project! Have a great day!

Here are some fun challenges I entered:
The Paper Variety - mist, inks, or paint
More Than Favors - Mother's Day
Fantabulous - use more than 3 flowers
Papercraft Star - use your own sketch
For Fun Challenges - Mom and flowers
My Craft Spot - Mother's Day
Patti-Lynn Creations - flowers
Creative Cutter Room - linking party!

Celebrate the Occasion Challenge #12

For this week's challenge, you can make either a Congratulations or Graduation project. I created a graduation card using the Everyday Paper Dolls cart for the cap and the scroll. I found this fun digital sentiment to incorporate into the card too.

I inked the cap and scroll and then tied a ribbon around the scroll. I used a bead and embroidery floss for the tassel and that completed the look I was going for.


Be sure to join us this week at Celebrate the Occasion for this fun challenge and to check out all the fabulous work from the rest of the awesome Design Team! All you need to do is create a card, layout or project and post it by Sunday, May 8th, 11:59pm (EST). The winner will be selected and entered into their monthly drawing! Have a great day!