Awards Continued

Yes, I got a little sidetracked.

The next award was the Honest Scrap Award. I received this from Amanda at Cricuit Creations by amkscrap. If it weren't for Amanda, I'm not so sure that I would have a blog for you to be reading. She patiently answered each and every question I could come up with for blogging. And she is sweet enough to share her account so that I am able to share files with you. Not to mention her talent! If you haven't already done so, please go visit Amanda's blog.


The rules are to state 10 honest things about oneself and then pass this on to 7 other bloggers. Here goes:

1) I love strawberries. (I thought of that because I just ate a chocolate covered one. Yum!)
2) I'm a wimp in the heat. (However, I think it's the humidity that kills me.)
3) I am not a good passenger in the car and would rather drive.
4) I don't like to fly since 9/11.
5) I need to scrapbook more.
6) I enjoy creating things for others.
7) I love pink. OK, you knew that, didn't you.
8) I was blessed with amazing parents.
9) I spend entirely too much time on the computer.
10) I appreciate all of you for reading my blog.

OK, that part is done. I'm afraid you'll have to wait to see where I send these awards.


Then came the One Lovely Blog Award from Tina at Tiggers Scrap Place. I had not visited Tina's blog prior to being honored with this award, but I can guarantee that I will be a regular from now on. I think you will agree when you visit Tina's blog.


Here are the rules:
1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.
2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.


And last, but by no means least, I received the I Truly Appreciate Your Blog Support Award. This award came from Susan at Busy with the Cricky. Another lady with amazing talent. I don't know how she keeps coming up with such beautiful cards and projects. Please go visit Susan's blog too.


This must be passed on to five blogs that I find inspiring.

When I get home where I'm able to blog hop a bit faster, I'll pass these awards along and let you know who is receiving them so that you can check out those blogs too.

Thank you SO much to Diane, Amanda, Tina and Susan for these awards. I apologize for not acknowledging them sooner. I appreciate all of you so much.

Thanks everyone,
Jill

Class Sign

I recently read that someone made a big poster with the year and grade for their child to hold for first day of school pictures. Sure wish I had thought of that all those years ago. A few weeks ago, I was going through all of my photos from Matt growing up and thought how nice it would be to know what year all of those were. I'll sit down one of these days to do a better job of sorting them and figure it out, but it would be so much easier if I had a clue.

I was too late to help Claire with Logan's pictures, but thought I could at least help Amy. Instead of a poster, I made a cut out with the year and a K for Kindergarten. Who knows, maybe I'll manage to be a good aunt and remember to do this each year. It could happen.


Of course, I had to do Bella's in pink with a purple shadow. Should Amy decide to start scrapbooking, she also has the perfect beginnings to a title page. I used Base Camp on mine, but you can use whatever font you want.

Here's the cut file for the Kindergarten 2009 sign.


Here's a little taste of our vacation. This is Table Rock Lake and Dam. My dad helped build the gates on this dam. That's why we lived in Branson when I was 9 months old. Every trip to Branson includes a stop by the dam. My friend Kay's dad also worked on this dam. They had already left Branson by the time we came though. Yes, it is a small, small world.

Jill

School Days

You may remember that my friend and co-worker, Claire, got married back in May? When she married Chris, she got a precious step-son in the bargain. Logan started Kindergarten last week.

Bella, the granddaughter of one of my double cousins, and her mom came for a visit last week. Bella starts Kindergarten next week.

Since I don't have grandkids of my own, I decided that Logan and Bella needed something for their new adventures. And we all know that I love making luggage tags.


I started with Locker Talk and selected the school bus and crayon. After looking at all of the apples available, I decided that I liked the one on My World best for this project.


Next was the colors. I knew that I wanted to go with primary colors for the school bus and apple, but what about the crayon. I found out that Logan's favorite color is red and confirmed that Bella's are pink and purple. Sorry for the glare below; it was that or blurry.


As usual, I was doing everything at the last minute. Logan's was so last minute that I didn't have a chance to take pictures of his. Of course, his crayon was red, so all of his tags were in red, green, yellow, blue and black. Being a boy, I figured that he most definitely would NOT want ribbons on his.

I had a little extra time with Bella's and got them done after she and Gram went to bed for their sleepover. I wish I had some of that child's energy.


Each item has it's own tab. I didn't try putting everything on one cut tab. With all of the pieces, it was easier for me to work with each item on its own. The School Bus sign has its very own page because I used my Cricut markers on this one so that the letters would show better. They're a bit blurry, but you get the general idea. I think the gel pens that Diane has been working with would have been better, but I don't have those yet. If you don't have the markers, you can just use a pen or chalk or leave as is.

I started the project using one font for the names but changed when I found Printing 101 on sale at Wal Mart. I doubt you'll need these names, but I left those tabs anyway. You can use whatever font you want for your names.

Due to a glitch in the calendar, Logan didn't have his until the second day of school. Claire said he was so excited about his tags that she couldn't get him out of the car that morning. It seems that his PreK teacher was helping him out and Logan was telling him about the tags instead of getting out.

I think Bella was excited. She gets pretty quiet when I give her things, but Gram said that she was telling her mom all about them later.


I think these would be great for anyone in the younger grades or elementary teachers. Locker Talk has some other items that would be better for higher grades. Hope you find a use for them.

So far, another beautiful day in Branson. I think we're going out to the dam in just a bit.

Oh, guess I better include the cut file.

Have fun,
Jill

Awards

Greetings from Branson, Missouri! We are on vacation and loving every minute of it. The weather is absolutely beautiful and the temps are awesome. We went for a late lunch at IHOP this morning and it was 64 degrees! Our condo is below ground level in the front, so I decided earlier to go blog hop on the balcony and enjoy the lovely scenery out back. Ha, no internet connection out there. So I sat out there and read my book for a little while. Other than the singing neighbor, it was GREAT! Not even a bug to swat away.

I hope you haven't given up on me yet. I've been creating, just not making the time to post. Plans are to do some catching up this week and let you see some of my recent projects. I think you're really going to like some of them.

First on my agenda is to acknowledge some blog awards that I have "recently" received from some awesome bloggers.


The first was the Kreative Blogger Award from Dianne at Capadia Designs. If you have been following my blog for long, you know that I think she is awesome. And if you haven't already done so, go check out her blog.

Diane's post said that I share a few things about myself and pass the award along to seven other bloggers. Let's see if I can come up with 7 things:

1) I am an only child and have an only child.
2) I attended the same school all 12 years (no kindergarten back then).
3) I completed college in 3 years.
4) I was a high school business teacher.
5) My mother's brother married my dad's sister and I have 2 double cousins.
6) I have always lived in Arkansas except for 9 months that we lived in Branson when I was 9-18 months old.
7) I am married to the most wonderful man.

OK, I started on this in the afternoon. It is now 10:36 p.m. and I'm beat. We went to an Owners Party which was a buffet dinner and previews of lots of shows around town. After coming back to the condo, we decided to go see Harry Potter The Half-Blood Prince. Not sure what we'll end up doing tomorrow.

I'll try to get a project posted tomorrow and then continue with the awards. I feel honored to have received these and already feel bad that it has taken me so long to acknowledge them.

See you then,
Jill

Tractor Card

I hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th of July. We had a nice family lunch and later watched some of the fireworks at the air base.

Best made plans! Sometimes it just doesn't pay to plan ahead. ha Remember the Winnie the Pooh card that I made for Aidan's birthday? Well, first of all, contrary to Dave's prediction, I still know where the card is located. But second of all, Kate changed the theme of the party--John Deere. yikes!

I considered just using the Pooh card but couldn't quite bring myself to do so. Dang OCD! Sooooo, out comes My World!


Pretty cute if I do say so myself. Below are most of the pieces used.


And here's the beginning of the layers. The blackout tractor was adhered to the front of the card. Remember--do NOT put adhesive on the left edge of the back tire as it hangs off when the card is folded. The blackout tires were adhered to the tractor and the yellow tire centers to the tires. The centers were made with George, but any circles a little larger than the original middle of the tires would work.


I wanted to pop the other layers but not as high as my pop dots, so I used Zots 3-D glue dots. I put a layer of Zots between the card and the tractor and another layer between the tractor and the tires.


Then I decided that the back tire needed more dimension since they do come out farther on a real tractor. So I cut another back tire. (That's the missing part on the pieces image.) I then attached it using more Zots. There was one delay in this as I ran out of Zots and had to make a run to Michaels. (I now have an extra box.) The view below shows all of the layers.


I found some John Deere pattern paper at the lss. I used it and Wild Card for the envelope and used a CTMH stamp to make a postage stamp. (I had another delay here as my Expression quit cutting. Provo Craft was great and got another shipped to me quickly.) I hid the tick marks on the envelope as I don't like them. I scored the normal 4 folding lines and then scored again about 1/4 inch from the original lines on the top and the bottom.


I printed a sentiment, attached it and stamped Happy Birthday.


I even managed to find a John Deere gift bag at WalMart. His gift was, of course, a tractor. And my mother found a John Deere bucket, milk can and utensil holder. He can use them to hold his toys and we thought the utensil holder would be a great for his tools. Happy Birthday, Aidan!


The file is set up so that the card can be cut from any of the machines. The Expression would have 2 cut pages and the others have 3. However, the envelope can only be cut with the Expression because of the size. Sorry. As usual, some of the pages of the file are for preview only and don't need to be cut.

After I had already assembled part of the card, I decided that the tractor needed a little help with the detail. I used my green Cricut marker to go over the cut lines by hand. If I were to do this card again, I would "cut" with the marker first before actually cutting it out.

John Deere Tractor Card


Have a great day,
Jill

Strawberry Card

Who wants strawberries? Yummmmm! Well, you wouldn't want to eat this one, but it sure makes a cute card.

Friday was Linda's last day of teaching. Well, as a career anyway. After 25 years, she has retired! This is the card several of us sent her along with a gift card. Elizabeth told us that she loves strawberries and red.


This is a card from Hello Kitty Greetings. I do love this cartridge and have yet to cut a Hello Kitty from it. Anyway, I cut the card base in red and then the strawberry blackout in black, the strawberry layer in red and two sets of leaves in green. I ran the strawberry through Virginia's Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots folder.

I layered the strawberry and one set of leaves onto the black using pop dots. I then layered the second set of leaves on top of the first to make another dimension. I attached the black layer to the front of the card using 3D glue dots as they are not as tall as my regular pop dots. You can see the difference as well as all of the layers below.


I then stuck the tip of my Black Diamond Stickles into each hole and got some sparkle inside. I used Xmas Red Stickles on each of the dots on the strawberry and added a little highlight with Green Stickles to the leaves.


Elizabeth said that she had a great party and loved the gift and card. We weren't able to make it to her party, but we were there in thought. :o) Congratulations, Linda!


The card will cut on any Cricut, but you'll need the Expression for the envelope. George was used to add more overlap to the envelope for the layers. You can score along the regular score lines and then again 1/4" further out to make more of a boxed envelope.

There's also a page in the file for a small strawberry to add to the inside of the card or on the envelope. I lost mine before I got it attached and ran out of time to make another.

Strawberry Card

Enjoy,
Jill

Wedding Cake

Thanks to Susan, I have fallen in love with layered (pop-dotted) cards. Lots of work, but so pretty! Here's her post that got me started. I've also fallen in love with Wild Card.

Thanks to the cards, fun with family and friends, and becoming a Farm Town addict, I've been rather busy lately. Hopefully, I can start catching up. I've even gotten behind reading other blogs. (hanging head in shame)

I was at a crop when I started work on the wedding cake cards and only had my baby bug. Therefore, I had to do some adjusting, but here's the one I've completed so far. The bride and groom are graduates of the University of Arkansas and HUGE Razorback fans. Sorry my colors aren't too great in the photos.


I had problems getting the icing to fit right on the bottom, so I cut a "platter" instead. However, that caused it to NOT fit in the envelope.


Here's a bit of a side view that kind of shows the layers.


And inside I used a couple of my CTMH stamps for a sentiment.

Seems like this is the year for weddings!

I have a couple more that I'll be sharing soon, but I have to clean up the files. One is for graduation. This one you'll have to go visit Susan to get the file.

Hope everyone is enjoying the first part of summer.

Jill