A Pink Stamper Challenge!!

So last night I joined Robyn and Karlee in a Pink Pajama Live party! It is always so much fun to watch how silly they are and craft along with them! Last night I was able to craft along with them literally!

There was a challenge to create an item in 30 minutes or less that had the colors pink, green, and purple. At first, I had no idea what to do. After looking through my giant paper stash, I found a great background paper to use! I ran around like a crazy person choosing ribbon, a stamp sentiment, and an image on my Gypsy, I was creating so fast! My craft room looked like a tornado had come through! I will admit I finished my project in "Karlee Time" which I think was around 33 minutes, but all in all I'd say that's not too bad....

Also this project reminded me how badly I need to find my Honeybee Scissors... I only had my dull scissors and it really shows in the ribbon.. oh well it adds character right? :)

Here is my post from the Gypsy blog Tuesday Treats! I was honored to be the guest designer and, while I was very nervous, I had a blast creating this project! Here is the post you will also see on Tuesday Treats.

Hi everyone! Let me introduce myself really quickly. My name is Elizabeth and I am a recent college graduate. I was introduced to the Cricut world about a year and a half ago and I have never looked back! I have a big Expression and a Gypsy as of Christmas of last year. My style is pretty simple, but I love it! I love to make cards and gifts, but my favorite thing is still scrapbooking. I hope you enjoy this project!

So, let me start off by saying I am a little nervous to be here, but am also excited to share my project with everyone. I have a small blog that I mainly started for keeping an archive of past projects for personal use, so this is my first time sharing with a large audience.

I had the tree box on page 127. I am sad to admit that although I have owned this cartridge for over 3 months, I had not used it yet!!! I hadn't even linked it to my Gypsy! Ok, please tell me at least a couple of you have some cartridge sitting somewhere on a dusty shelf that hasn't been touched in forever... it might help me get over my guilt...

I will admit that I am very glad this was not a video! Because it did not work out at all how I planned it. At first, I thought this was a box like one you would open. After I assembled a test cut I realized that it is more like a 3-d object, but you will see how I worked around that so I could still put some goodies inside.

Here is the tree box after all the scoring. I used my Scor-Pal to make the scoring a little easier. It worked really nicely to line up each score mark. I was surprised by how many flaps this box has, but this was the first box I have made.

This is the box after I inked up the edges. I was going for a distressed, recycled look to fit the Earth Day theme. Keep an eye out for more recycling later on in the post.

Then I had a brilliant recycling idea! I asked my fiance if he had any old papers from college that he didn't need anymore. He gave me a funny look, but handed me some papers.... he is used to not asking why I need strange things in the craft room anymore. :)

Then I got out my crimper that I bought at Michael's with a 50% coupon (the only way to shop really) :) and started crimping all the strips. After I crimped them, I squished them and shaped them until they had the look I was going for. Then I filled the box using the window as my opening until it looked nicely full, while still having room for other goodies.

Okay, let me address the green triangle I added as a layer. This was a big issue as I was working on the project. I was originally going to use this paper for the entire box, but then I didn't think it felt stable enough. So then I had the brilliant idea to use the Gypsy to create a layer! After all that's what the Gypsy is supposed to do! Unfortunately, I only own one cartridge with a triangle. No problem, right? Big problem. The cartridge is George and I am one of those unlucky people who still have not been able to link George to my Gypsy. Ugh. So I did something kind of crazy. I hand cut all the triangles. Woah. I was worried that I had forgotten how scissors worked that way after using the Cricut and my Gypsy exclusively. Don't worry I guess it's like riding a bike. :) I just traced the box and then cut slightly smaller so it would layer. In order to cut out the window, I traced the piece that had cut from the window originally and traced that. Then I cut that out and prayed that it would work as I had used up all of the one sheet of patterned paper I had bought. Note to self: Always buy at least two sheets. Anything less is tempting fate. The next picture shows the back of the box. This triangle was much easier. :)

I wanted to include a small packet of seeds as an Earth Day gift in the box. Then I came to another roadblock. The seed packet was way too big! No problem, I told myself as I took calming breaths. ;) I just folded it in half and glued it together with my ATG. That ATG is seriously a life saver! Here is a picture of the box with the packet of seeds inside.

Then I stamped a piece of cream cardstock with this awesome clear stamp I found at Hobby Lobby. Recently our local Hobby Lobby expanded by 8000 square feet!! It is like Christmas every time I stop in. I am constantly finding products they didn't stock before. The best part is they mix them in with the old merchandise so it feels like a treasure hunt! Oh, the simple pleasures in life. :) Anyways... I found a spring themed clear stamp set that had this adorable sentiment. I cut around the edge and distressed it with my Tim Holtz Paper Distresser. I couldn't decide where to adhere it down. Then I had an idea! I would tuck it inside the window and make it a little card or gift tag.

Here is a picture of the back of the card. I just wrote a small note on there and signed it. Here is another place where things did not go as planned. The pen I grabbed was slow to start and the 'H' on "Happy" just did not look right. I decided to widen it out and stylize the letters a little. Again, I am so thankful this was all not on video! I don't know how everyone does it!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this long post! I hope you enjoy my project! I actually had a lot of fun making it once I got over the nerves. :) If you would like, feel free to check out my blog ScrapSweet Designs Again, thank you so much for looking and have a great day!

Crocheted Camera Case

Since I don't have enough hobbies (haha...) I decided it was time to learn a new one!!

Over Thanksgiving I learned how to crochet and I have been having a blast hooking since then! Lol

During crafty weekend, I was worried about my new camera getting scratched up in my purse. Sooo I decided to stitch up a camera case! The first picture shows the original case I came up with... but it just needed some embellishing. After trying a few patterns I came up with this flower pattern that I love!! Now it's almost done. I still want to go back later and add a ribbon drawstring and charms, but for now I love it! Hope you enjoy!

A Very Crafty Weekend... Take 2!

After we completed our beaded watches (see post below), we moved onto scarves! She recently had seen these scarves down at a local store for up to $60! Well, we both knew that was just ridiculous so we got to work. She had a template that a close friend had made for her.

These were so simple!! The part that took the longest was cutting all the yarn. I ended up using a wall hook to gather all the yarn and then hung it over the pantry door to tie all the knots. This method helped me make sure that the knots were even.

I even had Andrew's nieces choose 5 different colors and made them custom scarves. They loved them!

A Very Crafty Weekend...

Okay, so I am not exactly doing a great job on the New Year's resolutions... however I am doing better than I was before! I guess I will count that as progress and try to do better going forward! That's all you can do right?

Here are some pictures of a crafty weekend I spent at Andrew's parents... from the moment I arrived she had a huge list of projects for us to do! She knows me too well... I like to stay busy with crafting projects at all times!

Our first project was a beaded watch. This watch was made by threading seed beads onto ALOT of safety pins. Then we threaded them onto elastic which was looped through the back of the watch face. We are going to try this project again with wire and a clasp. Luckily my mom and I used to make jewelry and I could borrow some supplies. Thanks Mom!!

I will include pictures of our next project in my next post. For this post please enjoy the pictures of our first beaded watch!

Gift Tags with the Gypsy

Sorry this post was a little later than I said. Grandma and Grandpa ended up coming over and we played Wii for New Year's Eve. Trust me, it was very entertaining.

Here are the gift tags I designed with the Gypsy. I love her so much because I am able to design on my break at work and come home and cut right away! Plus it is so nice to be able to see where to put all your little pieces of paper. I love love love saving paper!

These gift tags were made using Joys of the Seasons and Gypsy Wanderings... hope you enjoy!

Christmas Presents and New Year's Resolutions

I am so excited!! Last week for Christmas, I got the best gift from Santa!! A GYPSY!!! Woohoo!!! I have already created some last minute gift tags for our second Christmas celebration this weekend. I will be posting pictures of those tags later tonight after dinner. But for now here is a picture of my new Gypsy. This is when it was still in the box, but trust me she has gotten a great workout since then. :)

I also want to address New Year's Resolutions in this post. This year I have decided to have three resolutions. Here they are... no going back now...

1. Post on my blog at least once a week. I know that certain family members have been giving me grief about my lack of updates. I am going to try to update with a variety of projects. I will be doing wedding projects, scrapbooking pages, and maybe even some crochet projects!

2. Work out. I know, it is the same resolution everyone has. But I would like to work out using my Wii one hour a day for five days a week. Hopefully posting it on my blog will give me some accountability.

3. Get caught up on my scrapbooking. Now that I am officially graduated from college (Yay!!) I will have more free time when I get home from work. I plan on creating page kits when my photos arrive in the mail to speed my scrapbooking along.

Dang, now that I read that it sounds like a lot of work. But it's always good to have the best intentions and set your goals high. I can do it!!