Santa Claus has ARRIVED!

My dear husband surprised me last night by giving me a Cricut for our anniversary, and here are my first attempts using the new Pagoda cartridge. I have to tell you that I am OVER THE MOON with happiness because of my new toy (and being married to my Bear for 29 years, too)!!!!...the only trouble is that I can already see that this Cricut will send me down the path of no return! Last night, my sister gave me a set of Asian stamps from Inkadinkado called Asian Influences, and it had the bamboo stamp as part of that set --- what are the odds that it would go together so nicely with this new cartridge?!....and my in-laws game me some "mad" money to treat myself to some shopping...and I think you might be able to guess where I was this morning at the crack of dawn?....YEP - at Michael's buying more Cricut cartridges at 60% off. Oh, please....help me now! I can thank my friend Rachel for that suggestion -- she wrote me late last night that she would be out shopping on Black Friday starting at 5:30 am. I had never done any shopping on Black Friday before....but that 60% off Cricut sale at Michael's with a 25% off of everything else coupon just lured me right out of bed and through the drizzle at 7 am this morning to get more cartridges!!! BTW - the picture below shows my first rendition of the panda card --- something was missing --- he needed a bow and some black added to the bamboo with a .005 micron pen to add that little bit of extra pizazz!

MAGNETIC CARD BOX plus Quick Card Ideas

These were the projects for my last regular class at Memories Live On. Everyone got to make a card box AND 7 cards!

Personalized Water Bottles

Here's an idea for a meeting, office, party, class, etc. and use up your scraps that you hate to just throw away!

Give a water bottle with the WOW FACTOR by using an oval or circle punch: Punch out an oval or circle on the top layer, then stamp a saying or write a name on a separate piece of white cardstock, place adhesive on the wrong side of the oval punched paper, center and adhere saying/name in oval. Adhere one layer of designer paper to the bottle, then adhere the oval/circle layer on the top.

Your guests will never loose track of their water bottle when you use up your scraps this way!

Stamp Set: Stampin' Up Spotlight On Christmas, but you can use any stamp you desire.

More Card Party Pics

Here are a few more pics of the beautiful cards we made from Katie's Stampin' Up Card Party last weekend. Oh, what fun we had! True Bliss for sure! The first pic shows the favor box she made for us filled with peppermints. The dish beside it was a cute little Christmas dish that Rina gave every person at the party. She got them at Safeway -- and the wrapped box it came in added such a lovely touch!

Michael's Contest

Michael's is having a contest now to showcase handmade items....did someone say CONTEST?! Well, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to promote my new card club by entering my Santa pants box....so if you get a chance, please click on the 5th star in the lower left corner to enter your vote for my project seen HERE on their site - THANK YOU! The YouTube video and details for ordering the Santa pants box can be found HERE.

Best Christmas Present EVER!

Yesterday, my very talented card maker friend named Katie, once again gave her friends the best Christmas present EVER! She had a Christmas card making party where we each got to make 6 gorgeous cards. It's going to be REALLY hard to give any of them away, and I thought you'd enjoy seeing this one made from a small and slightly larger Stampin' Up tag punch. The result was a stunning card with the 100% WOW! Factor. Thank you, Katie!!!

I Support Operation Write Home

Confession: It's REALLY hard for me to throw away larger left over scraps of paper after I finish a craft project! I definitely don't have the space to save them all - and what are the chances I'd ever go back and use them?!....so now I create cards with these perfectly good scraps for the brave troops serving our country. This was a flamingo I made for a friend out of my left over pink cardstock scraps. (Confession No. 2: The background had the birthday cake already on it - so that made it super easy!) I had enough scraps to make two cards: One for my friend and one for Operation Write Home. Visit their website if you are interested in learning more:

http://operationwritehome.org