Countdown to Christmas

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Did everyone head out for the Black Friday Sales??? I did not go out this year. My son took me to Michaels last night and I did get a couple of cartridges and I was able to order his gift online. No crowds!

With some extra time off of work I was able to make this Advent calendar inspired by the Christmas With the Cricut Blog. If you haven't checked them out you should. Everyday they have a different craft idea and they also have giveways once a week, usually a Cricut cartridge as well as paper or other items featured on their blog or by their sponsor of the week. To find out more Click Here.

Now on to the Advent calendar. I used my Accent Essentials cartridge to cut the snowflakes for the tags. I cut them at 2 1/4". I created the numbers using my Cricut Design Studio and my Lyrical Letters cartridge and cut at 1 1/4". The sour cream containers were cut 6" X 4".  I filled each container with a couple of pieces of chocolate and a small ornament for the tree. I am going to give this to my Mom. the paper I used was from Stampin Up and some I got at Big Lots a while back for $1 a pack as well as from a paper pack I got at Joanns a couple of weeks ago. I bought the tree from Big Lots as well for just $4.  It was fairly quick to make this and definitely easy.

A Wedding Card

Here is a card I made for a friend who is getting married this Saturday. I used the Stretch Your Imagination cricut cartridge to make the Bride and Groom cut 3 1/4". I cut the brides dress layer out of some brocade glitter paper I had on hand. I don't know who made it, this was just a small piece I had leftover from another project. the card went together quickly. The brown patterned paper is from Stampin Up. I also used a frame of cream and the card itself is 4 1/4" X 5 1/2" out of some brown cardstock I had on hand.

I have also been working on a couple of other projects that I hope to get photos posted by Saturday. Thanks for looking.

Frosty card

Here is another card I just made using the snowman from the Doodlecharms cartridge. The snowflake paper is from Bo Bunny and a piece of cardstock I picked up at my LSS. I cut the snowman out in dark chocolate brown using the blackout feature and then again in white not using any creative feature keys. I chalked his little cheeks in pink and traced over his mouth with black. I also lightly chalked the white snowman with a light gray chalk just to help it stand out a little more. I used pop dots to give him some dimension and make him pop off the page. The blue ribbon I used for his scarf is from K and Company and was from a small pack of ribbon I got at Big Lots for $1. This was a quick simple card to put together. Thanks for looking.

Christmas Card

I went to Joann's yesterday and bought two holiday paper packs. This card is from the Joann's exclusive Peppermint Forest paper pack. The paper pack has a lot of really cute paper, some with snowflakes, some with polar bears and penguins, Christmas trees. It is nice heavy one sided card stock. I cut the house on this card from the Cricut Christmas Noel cartridge. I used some Icicle Stickles to give the snow on the roof and ground a glittery look and used pop dots to adhere the house. The ribbon is also from Joann's. The card base is a standard A2 card made with some white Wausau card stock I bought at Big Lot's. I cut the red mat at 4" X 5 1/4" and the pink paper at 3 3/4" X 5. The house and its layers were cut at 3". Thanks for looking.

What a Busy Weekend

I had a crazy weekend and didn't get a lot of crafting time in. I did get to spend a little time working on my Merry Christmas word book. I also got to get myself a new toy on Friday. The Craft Warehouse had the Zutter Bind-It-All on sale for $44 so I was able to buy one. It was the first time I had been in this store as they are about 20 miles away from me. Wow what a store. I did spend some time looking at all they had and picked up a few smaller items that I haven't seen at the stores I typically go to. I did spend quite a bit of time cooking this weekend. It was a very stormy rainy weekend so I made homemade lasagna for dinner last night. Today I made an apple pie and scalloped potatoes (in the crockpot) to have with dinner tonight. I am only working two days this week so I hope to have some projects to share with you after Wednesday when I will have several crafting days. I can hardly wait.

I did cut out a box for Melissa Ford over at All Crafty and Delicious.  I made two of her boxes. She is working out some minor tweaks to the design but should have photos and the file posted soon to her blog.

What I Worked on This Weekend

So I got to spend a little time crafting but didn't get much finished. It was one of those weekends where life got in the way of fun. My sister asked me if I could make a few items for her sell at her Holiday Open House she is having in a few weeks. So, I decided to see if I could make a Christmas Wordbook. I have only done one word book before (again not completed). I designed this one from scratch using my Cricut Design Studio software and Plantin Schoolbook and Storybook Cricut Cartridges. I was able to get the image cut out of some recycled cereal boxes and covered with Christmas paper. I hope to get it done next weekend.

I also wanted to thank Dana Kruse for her kind words she posted on her blog. A week or so ago she asked on the Cricutlovers Yahoo Group I belong to,  if someone could help her out and cut out a tag that she designed in Design Studio. She has been recovering from a leg injury and was not able to do it herself. I volunteered to give it a try. I didn't end up doing the tag as she invisioned but as I saw it when I looked at the file. To me the tag said Snowflake so that is how I did it. She loved it. To check out the tag and see some of Dana's other work check out her blog HERE.