National Scrapbook Day

Saturday was National Scrapbook Day so a lot of scrapbooking/cardmaking bloggers issued challenges and giveaways you could enter if you participated.  I participated and you have to enter submissions by tonight so I am posting today instead of tomorrow.  This is Sizzle btw.  So here are my submissions to the mypinkstamper NSD challenge.  I think I have to do them as two seperate posts so here is the "Hey Dad" card. 

I used Graphically Speaking cartridge for the background (4.5 inches) and the tag (1.75inches).  I used a silver pen for the SKU.  I cut the letters D.A.D. from the Harmony cuttlebug alphabet set and painted the letters white.  I use spray on adhesive to adhere the chipboard. 

Paper Craft Tuesday with Sizzle

Good morning. I am slowing starting to feel better although I am still getting over a cold. The change of seasons really gets to my family and it is definitely changing to Spring here in Utah.

Today I wanted to share some cards I made last night. I love paper crafting but I haven't really gotten into as much as some people have. But it is really fun and I enjoy it when I do it.

Last night I wanted to play around with my Cuttlebug (a die-cut/embossing system) and use some embossing folders I got to make some birthday cards. Some turned into one birthday card and then another just for you card.

For the birthday one (above) I cut some card stock into 4 x 5.5 and folded it (I really need a score buddy because I am not a good folder) and then cut some green card stock a little smaller and ran in through my Cuttlebug with a happy birthday embossing folder (that's how I got that background.) The little present was a small embossing folder that I ran through with a small piece of red card stock cut to the size of the folder and then I sanded it to expose the white core.

This card I tried a card on my Cricut. I cut it from A Child's Year cartridge but I folded it a little crooked but just a little. I cut out this little bird tag and ran it through my Cuttlebug with the swirl embossing folder and sanded it a little. I also inked the edges with cat eye color box ink and stamped the sentiment.

I love the Cuttlebug. Those embossing folders make a big difference and I am so happy when the finished product looks like what I have in my head.

I am going to make some more birthday cards so I have some on hand to send to family when their birthday's come up.

Make a card today - it is fun and easy and gets your creativity going.

Creative Excercise

****Don't forget to enter the giveaway - I will draw a winner on Thursday!****

Hi - Its Tuesday and that means it Sizzle's turn to blog. So here I am with a creative exercise. I think that creativity is an exercise, sometimes you have to try something new, get out of your comfort zone and learn by doing. Scrapbooking is my creative exercises. It does not come naturally to me, I stress about it; it takes me ALL day to do just one page. For most things I don't think it is worth it but I do it sometimes because it helps me think creatively and using that part of my brain. I don't follow patterns in scrapbooking so it all has to come from ME. That is different from what I usually do. I like to follow a pattern that I know works; that other people have tried and had success with. I feel uncomfortable without instructions or a pattern.

Thus scrapbooking is my creative exercise. Get it?

The only thing I scrapbook are first year baby books. I try (I haven't finished my 2 year old's yet) to keep a scrapbook of each babies first year. It is so hard for me but I try.

Today I started the baby's (Let me warn you that I was so excited to be able to use flowers). Here is what I came up with.

Can you believe that it took me all day (actually part of two) to come up with these two pages? That is a record for me too, usually it would take longer but now I have a Cricut and that really helped me. I suppose part of the time was in getting used to how it works and experimenting.

I am new to it, this was only my second time to use it but it is a pretty cool tool when you get the hang of it. Most everything in my layouts came from the Basic George cartridge with one exception (miracle came from Home Decor). I just have the basic Cricut so I can cut things from 1" to 5.5." I am pretty sure that is all I would ever use it for. I used to want the bigger one but now I think I am glad I got this smaller one.

Let's take a closer look

The letters for Bloom are American Craft thickers and the In is a Memory makers rub on. The brackets came from the George cartridge, I cut them at 1" I figured in bloom was a nice way to say REALLY PREGNANT. Don't you think so?

The little flowers came from a punch and the bigger flowers were cut from George. This page is for my pregnancy picture - which I had to photo edit a wee bit so I don't have the actual picture yet. (I am not clever enough to print them on my own computer even though I am pretty sure I could if I tried)

All the above flowers (the bigger ones) came from George I just printed them at 1" in white and then 2.5" in blue and inked the edges and layered them. The orange flowers are from that punch again.

I have a hard time figuring out how to journal. I HATE my handwriting, it is terrible so That is NOT an option for me. I guess I could feed the card stock through the printer but I am not sure how I would cut shapes around the words if I did that first.... so I use vellum. I run the vellum through the printer and then use vellum tape. It took me awhile to find out about vellum tape but it is the only thing that you can't see - at least as far as I know.

The word miracle was on the Home Decor cartridge, I used the shadow feature for the white and left the cutouts in the a and the e and then cut it again in the orange paper just regular.

(the Cricut has a shadow, blackout and image feature so you can layer and get three different effects)

I haven't figured out the bottom half of this page for the journaling, any ideas? I had a decorative box there but it was too small so I have to re-cut one tomorrow and maybe I will just use my crappy handwriting. Journaling is definitely the trickiest part. What do you guys do? Tips?

Your assignment this week is to try creative that is OUT of your comfort zone, something new or something you don't normally enjoy. Then send us an email with a picture of what you did and what you learned and I will post it next week. Our email is cjuices2@gmail.com

Keep the juices flowing!