Sunday, April 18, 2010

News From the Cricut Front

In mid May, the all new Cricut Cake Machine will be shipping.  This new product was announced in the Winter CHA 2010.  It is designed specifically for decorating cakes, cupcakes, or what ever else in the baking industry...

Also, a new cartridge will be shipping with this machine and will only be available if you buy the cake machine.  It is Cake Basics.  Below you can see some of the images on the Cartridge.

Hopefully once this product is offically shipping, a full review will become available.

Cricut Program Updates and Font Packs available here

What else is going on??  Provocraft is retiring a couple carts.  Sad to say that Stamped and Tags, Bags, Boxes and More will retire and no longer available.  Once the current stock sells, they will be gone.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Got Coupons??

Hey and good evening everyone...

I am so stuffed.  We just got back from eating out with my boyfriend's parents.  I over did it as usually..  I may regret eating too much but don't regret the blackberry pie.

Anyhow..  here are some coupons for you

Good April 18 - April 24


That is all Ihave for right now.  All of my online stash is expiring today.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Freebie Friday.. Photoshop Brush

Hello everyone..  since diving into digital, I started creating my own brushes.  I am giving my first brush away for free...  It is just a simple sun.  I don't know how much I can actually commit to this, but I am going to try to give some kind of freebie away every Friday.  It could be a brush, digital paper or other image..  who knows.

                                                        Click Here To Download

                                                        

Thursday, April 15, 2010

First Attempt At Digital Scrapping

Hello everyone..

I just wanted to post a layout I recently created.  It is a digital layout.  I recently became interested in digital because part of my background is graphic design and this is right up my alley.  I have already dabbled a little by doing hybrid layouts for my physical pages.  This digital page is a tribute to my grandmother who is dearly missed.

Friday, April 2, 2010

New Card for A Couple Challenges

Good afternoon...

I bring you a card that I made today for 2 challenges.  One is for the weekly challenge on Cardmaker magazine's forum and the other is for Cardvark's Weekly Challenge.  The theme for Cardvarks was to use lace and for Cardmaker magazine was to do a "happy" themed card for any happy occassion.  Below you will find my card..  I was going for a vintage look.  Thanks for looking.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Mini Album For My Cousin

Hey there everyone.  I just finished an 8x8 chipboard album for my cousin, Travis.  I had already made one for his older brother Daryl for Christmas but didn't get any pictures of it.  I took pics of Travis's though. 

Warining:  A Long Post

History:  The 3 of us grew up next door to each other.  Our maternal grandparents lived in the house next door on the other side of my cousins.  We are a tight knit family.  Our grandfather passed in 1982 after an extended illness.  My grandmother cared for him with the aid of a nurse who visited every day.  Then around Christmas time, 2005, my grandmother fell sick at the age of 91.  She turned 92 in January.  She passed away the day before Memorial Day 2006.

In 2008, tragedy strikes again.  In May of 2008, Daryl, at the age of 41, got luekemia.  He has been battling it every since.  He had a couple stem cell transplants which didn't work.  He is home now, but he has been bouncing in and out of the hospital.  He lost so much weight.  I almost can not recognize him.  He is now 43 and will turn 44 Sept 4.  Please do keep him in your prayers.

With all of that said, this past Christmas, I decided to create mini albums of the 3 of us growing up from the time we were still in diapers through our teen age years.  I finished Daryl's Christmas Eve and gave it to him.  He teared up over it and was really thankful.  I promised one to his younger brother Travis.  I finished his today and will post the pictures.  I will be doing one for myself as well.

Here is the album..............

This is the cover.  I used a crinkled card stock, cut the title from Platin Storybook Cricut Cart, used a scallop punch and circle punch for the round pic matting with blinging the cover with some stickles. Ohh..  the small border I used a martha stewart border punch.


This is when Travis had just come home from the hospital in July of 1970.  The paper used for the border I created myself and printed.  The rattle and title are svg files which I have available here on my blog. And I used a small flower punch.  I made a boo boo and the paper ripped in 2 places, so I covered the rips up with the punched flowers.


Left:  Just some pics when we were real little
Right:  A pic of Travis and me with Santa.
Again, I used my cricut with Make The Cut for the Titles and the Christmas Tree.
The mat with the holly was a print and cut.  I cut slits around the inside of the holly in upper right corner and tucked the picture behind.  I used gel pens and more stickles.


Easter pictures on the left and halloween on the right.  I cut the flowers on my cricut plus the easter eggs and title.  I used my cuttlebug and embossed the photo mat with devine swirls I believe.  The halloween page...  that year we were in a parade and we were dressed like Raggedy Ann and Andy (me and Travis and my mother) and Daryl dressed as an old lady.  Another neighbor girl was a witch.  We won first place.


The left is some birthday parties as we got older.  The right is Travis (in the window) and Daryl with the football helmet in a toy clubhouse.  I thought the title "Boys Rule" fit perfectly.  The title was cut out of chipboard and covered with paper.  The stars also cut on my cricut out of card stock.


Every year as youngsters, we all took an annual trip to Fenwick Island, Delaware.  Our families rented the same beach house each year. This trip was in 1975.   The lower right corner we were standing in front of Mt Vernon in VA.  This is probably my favorite out of the whole album.


On the left are just some misc pics as teens.  I stamped a floral image and heat embossed it and I had drew the border with a gel pen then went over it with stickles (love that stuff .. like you can't tell).  The right is a picture of Travis and me when we were in the high school marching band.  I got lucky and found our Alma Mater on the internet.  The paper for the pic mat and border I created and printed.  The paw (Leopards) I cut in MTC on my cricut and used 3D foam squares to pop it off the page.


This layout features Daryl in 1984 when he went off and joined the Army.  On the left is when he was either on leave or just after boot camp I think.  On the right was at Fort Dix, NJ at boot camp.


This is the final page.  I dedicated it to our beloved and greatly missed grandparents.

I hope I didn't bore you too bad.  Thank you for taking the time to view my book.