Design.Create.Inspire

Another one For Grandma Suzie

2011-04-23T21:27:00.001-04:00

And here is Crosby's daddy......meet Casey :)

For Grandma Suzie

2011-04-23T15:45:00.001-04:00

A lovely photo of your new furbaby :)

a few smilies for you :)

2011-04-19T19:44:00.000-04:00

A new addition to my cricut family...

2011-04-11T17:09:00.003-04:00

It was my birthday this Saturday and my wonderful husband surprised me with an Imagine!

click on photo for credits

This machine is so cool - and I have to admit I'm a little intimidated by it, it is huge!

If you have any tips that you can give me - I REALLY need them!

Wish me luck, I'm going to take it out of the box tonight.

Hmmmmmmmm....

2011-04-09T00:12:00.000-04:00

I do! I do! Going to have a wonderful day - I can feel it :)

Guest Designer over at SASL

2011-03-29T07:14:00.001-04:00

Today I will be over at She's a Sassy Lady as a guest designer. I will be sharing a tutorial that I made for a Glittery Hello Birdie Card.

Isn't it cute? Please come by and visit me over at Sheila's and leave a comment or two. I hope to see you there!

Right Brain or left?

2011-03-27T12:28:00.001-04:00

I just absolutely love this ad for Mercedes Benz. It also made me curious about what side of my brain I use most. So I took a fun little test online and discovered I'm 51% right and 49% left brain. What that exactly means?? I don't really know :) But I do know I love this image and wanted to share it with you all and ask - what side of the brain are you?

Nom, nom, nom

2011-03-18T00:32:00.000-04:00

Another pic that made me laugh out loud. I'm currently working on my circle calling cards - a birthday card and 2 swarm challenges....can't post anything yet (cause I'm just starting) but I will be able to share with you all soon! In the meantime - enjoy a little humour :)

Image Resource

Pardon the language - but this photo is too funny!

2011-03-08T09:42:00.009-05:00

How could you not love this?! When I first look at it - I smile, then I grin, then I chuckle.....cause I mean girl.... you ARE fabulous!! I just love this photo! Now where did I get this you might ask? Well I picked it up at a site where I spend a lot of time (I'm afraid to admit) and it's called PINTEREST.

A few months ago I joined this PINTEREST site and I've been hooked ever since. It's like my online idea book, organized and selected just by me :)

What is Pinterest? I went to the site and copied what they have there -

What is Pinterest?

Think of Pinterest as a virtual pinboard — a place where you can create collections of things you love and "follow" collections created by people with great taste.
People use Pinterest to collect and share all sorts of things -- wedding inspiration, favorite T-shirts, DJ equipment. You name it, people are pinning it.
We know you have great taste in something. Our mission is to make Pinterest the best place for you to share your taste with the world.

*Isn't that cool? I love that I have a place to just 'pin' any and all images that I want to save for later. It's not taking up any space on my hard drive which is a definite bonus :) You get to check out what other people are pinning - and if you like it - you can pin it to your own boards - which you can customize for that perfect portfolio of ideas to keep handy tee hee! (at least that's what I use it for :)

Because this site is still in the BETA testing stage - you need to request an invite - mine took about a week to get invited and my mom I think was around the same.

So go to the site - sign up - let me know when you get on the PINTEREST board and we'll start following eachother!! Come and play - it's so much fun :) :)

A different colour Pallette for me today.

2011-03-06T00:31:00.010-05:00

I've been trying to get to all of my pads of beautiful paper that have sat unopened and unused because they are just too darn pretty. I bit the bullet and ripped all sorts of paper out and started cutting, and gluing, and I-rocking, and embossing....a whole lot of product went on this card - and here it is!

Have a great night everyone - I'm off to bed *yawn*

Wishing for Spring

2011-02-26T01:06:00.004-05:00

I still have many more months of winter ahead of me - and spring is all I can think about.

It looks as though my spring fever has also leeched it's way into my birthday card as well :)

I used my Gypsy for this card.
I used WildCard for the card base, used some Stampin' Up stamps for the sentiment.
Got out my Irock and Cuttlebug and went to town on those butterflies and the front of the card.

Hope I brought you a little bit of spring today. :)

Magoo.

My New Permanent look!

2011-02-22T17:42:00.001-05:00

So, when I should have been cleaning up my house and doing other more productive things....I decided to finally sort out my blog look.

I wanted to design something that is totally me - and this is it!!

I've designed a brand new button for my blog that you can pretty up your own sidebar with.

Just keep in mind that this is designed to fit into a 240px width column. So if it looks cut off, just go into your design tab and fix the width under adjust width.

I hope you like it - I spent way too much time on it - but I really like opening up my blog and seeing the calming blue and green with a touch of brown. Finally, my blog is complete.

Just copy the html code in the box above, then paste into a html gadget in your layout tab and voila!

Thank You

2011-02-09T22:03:00.000-05:00

Thank you so much to those of you who stop by and visit me. I was so surprised when I looked and saw I have so many friendly faces that pop in! I started this blog almost 2 years ago just as a place to post my creations for my family to see via the internet. I can't always post as much as I'd like, and you guys still pop in just to see how I'm doing.

It really means a lot :)

So, I just wanted to say I appreciate you guys, and Thank you for taking the time to leave me a kind word or two. It really does make my day to see that someone has left me a little note to say hi :)

Warm and fuzzies - isn't it great?

Thanks guys, you are the best,

Seriously.

~MAGOO~

Mini Magoo quote of the day:

2011-02-03T18:42:00.000-05:00

"Dads love to tease, but in a different language."

wow, didn't take mini-magoo long to figure out this fundamental lesson between men and women lol!!!

~MAGOO~

2011-02-03T14:13:00.003-05:00

A few things that caught my eye - click on image for a better view :)

ok, so this isn't taken this month....but he's just so pretty I had to share it :P

Short and Sweet Valentine - Blog hop Winner!

2011-02-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

I used Random.org to draw a number and it pulled lucky #4 who is:

CHRISTINE!!!

Christine said...: Beautiful! Lovely work as always!
January 22, 2011 9:00 AM

Christine, I hope you check back in because I have no way of contacting you :(

I'll give you until Sunday February 6th, 12pm Eastern Standard Time.

If I haven't heard from ya sweetie- I'll have to draw another name.

Congrats!!

*thanks to EVERYONE who took the time to stop by, leave some love and participate in our blog hop. Without readers we'd be pretty lonely - love ya!! seriously.

{MAGOO}

Short and Sweet Valentine Blog Hop!!!!

2011-01-22T03:00:00.001-05:00

Hello!! If you're participating in the Short and Sweet Blog hop you are in the right place! You should be arriving here from Love to Create Cards by Steph

I am stop #6 on this weekend blog hop, below is a complete list of all the wonderful blogs you have and will be visiting:

http://www.217Creations.blogspot.com - 217 Creations by Elizabeth

http://crazyaboutcricut.blogspot.com - Crazy About Cricut by Jenny

http://lvscrappin.blogspot.com - Bling Queen by Wendy

http://www.thebugbytes.com - The Bug Bytes by Pam

http://lovetocreatecards.blogspot.com - Love To Create Cards by Steph

http://cricutinspiration.blogspot.com - Design Create Inspire by Myamagoo*right here!*

http://scrappinmystressaway.blogspot.com - Scrappin' My Stress Away by Lori

http://sweetsassydiva-gspot.blogspot.com - Sweet Sassy Diva by Bobbi Jo

Valentine's Day is the theme, anything goes. After thinking about a project to make, I decided my house was lacking in the Valentines Day decoration department. I came up with a very girly, very 'blingy' Valentines Day Banner (or some people call them bunting?).

A few things about this project:

1) All the pattern paper I used in this project I designed (yay me!)

2) I have a giveaway posted at the end of this blog post

3) I will be sharing this file with all of my wonderful followers (gotta love it when someone does the work for ya right? :)
4) I used Cindy Lou (for the font), Hannah Montana (for the hearts) and Tie the Knot(triangles) for this project. If you don't have Hannah Montana feel free to delete those hearts, and substitute hearts you do have on your gypsy.

And away we go!

I started off by getting all my paper out and placed on my mats. I used 12x12 mats for this project.

Once cut out I laid everything out to see how it all looked before I started gluing (a very hard lesson to learn, it took me some time lol).

Everything looked great, so I glued my scallop borders onto my base triangles.

Next I ran the letters through my cuttlebug machine, I used the swiss dots folder

This project sort of evolved and grew as I went along. I found the letters to be sort of 'blah' and didn't really pop enough. Out came my pop dots lol!!

I still found them 'blah' and I love glittery sparkly thingies, plus my rhinestones and Irock wanted to come out and play. How could I say no? I would NEVER have attempted gluing down all those by hand - my Irock is the bomb!! Took me 10 minutes to do all the letters (I just used the dots from the embossing as my template).

I forgot to take a pic, but at this point I got some red paper and some of my patterned paper, popped it into in the cricut and cut out 6 hearts really quick (3 full hearts and 3 with a cutout). The pic below shows how I glued the red heart down (after I ran it through the cuttlebug first). Then I folded the other heart in half and glued it along the spine. I held it in place for a little bit and it voila - instant dimension :)

Got my Cropodile out and punched some holes in each corner so I can thread these and hang them up later :)

What's this?!?! 'blah' hearts? no way!!....get the Irock!!

p.s. TULIP rhinestones (found in Walmart) work fabulously (is that a word?) with the Irock and at a fraction of the price! I found I just needed to hold it a touch longer - does anyone else like the smell it makes when you're melting the glue? or am I just weird? :)

Next up was to string all my pretty triangles up on some metallic cording. Then I dug through my ribbon ball (notice I didn't say extremely organized ribbon box?) and snipped away. Then I just tied, and tied, and fluffed and fluffed until the ribbon looked ok.

And here it is hung up and looking so festive :) Mini Magoo just loves it and wants these EVERYWHERE in the house.....oh my, I've created a monster :)

There you have it folks!! Thank you so much for stopping by :)

Don't be shy!! Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think (I really do want to know, I'm curious and nosy like that)

Now, your next stop will be at: Scrappin' My Stress Away

Wait!! If you've just happened to stop by today and aren't yet participating in the blog hop this weekend - Jump right on over to where it all starts ---* 217 Creations *--- there are some fantastic giveaways, gorgeous projects and lots of fun to be had!

As promised, a link to where you can download the Be Mine Valentine Garland. **Important** this file will arrive in a COMPRESSED (zip) format. This is a new method of delivering my files to you, it became necessary to include my copyright and terms of use within the download. Once you've decompressed the file you will have 2 documents. Please read the Terms of use document - just use your wordpad or text editor(for mac users). You will also find the .gypsy file in there too :) enjoy!

Magoo-Be Mine-Gypsy File

Still here? GOOD!! Were you paying attention? If so you should be looking for a giveaway..... :) :)

How does the cricut cartridge

sound? Pretty good? ho hum? Blah? Well............

How about I also include the digital patterned papers I used in this project?

One of a kind, never seen before patterned paper designed in 8.5x11 so you don't need a special printer in order to use it!

I've designed 5 special co-coordinating papers (plus for those digi scrappers out there I'll put in an extra little surprise for use in Photoshop and Elements) just for this blog hop!

Just be sure to leave me a comment and how I can reach you - of course followers are ALWAYS welcome :) GOOD LUCK!!!

~MAGOO~

A beautiful day for skiing and bird watching.....

2011-01-06T15:57:00.002-05:00

Mini Magoo trying ever so hard to master x-country skiing. I applied a vintage seventies style effect to this photo.

look familiar? This is the original image - without post processing and actions applied.

Such a frosty morning - almost magical how everything was covered with these spiky flakes, had to capture it :)

Nothing crafty to post today - but I almost always have new photos to share :)

Enjoy nature - it's just beautiful :)

*Linking up to The Creative Crate's Photoshop Friday. The challenge is 'something new'. These images all reflect the first time I've either seen (the frost on the line), done (the skiing) or photographed (the chickadee).

~MAGOO~

Love the Dollar store and my Crop A Dile!!

2011-01-01T15:06:00.004-05:00

I got a crop a dile a few months ago and never used it - this thing really does punch through anything!!

Which is what got me thinking about what I could use it for...

I had bought some frames from the dollar store and have been collecting quite a few, but I didn't realize at the time (when I was buying so many) that there wasn't any hook or spot on the back to hang them on the wall :(

I've always wanted to hang pictures with ribbon - I love the look, and wasn't motivated to do anything until we had people come to look at buying our house.

Mini-Magoo's work table needed some extra little pizazz so I grabbed my huge box of ribbon, and my cropadile and took apart the frame to see what I had to work with. This frame from the $ store is sorta like a shadow box, there is an additional frame inside that give you about 1/2 inch of clearance inside (I didn't really measure)...love it!

Here is the back, I grabbed some pliers and ripped it right off the back - it only left 2 holes.

Here is the black inner frame I was talking about- and you can see where I chomped out room for the ribbon with my crop a dile[thumbs up] This black frame comes out, and I punched 1 hole in the side of the frame as well...just eyeballed it - no measuring here lol! Then I fed my ribbon through both sides.

I tried to keep the same amount of ribbon on both sides...

Then put the frame back together and close those little black tabs...

then I just put a nail in the wall (oh how dear hubby cringes when I get the hammer and nails out bwahahahahaha!) and tie the ribbon into a bow or knot (depends on the ribbon, the striped one didn't want to make a pretty bow for me at all), and hang it on the wall! I liked how it turned out so much that I thought a group of three would be perfect at mini-magoo's desk. *lets not comment on the crooked one on the right k?

Mini-Magoo wants to have 3-d butterflies in there instead of the flowers (we just put something in there so it wouldn't be the brown backing of the frame), so we'll get the cuttlebug out later today and make some with the cut and emboss dies. I think it will look nicer too - 3d butterflies - yay!

I liked this so much that I thought I would hang her cork board for her projects on the wall the same way (usually it's full of paper stuff but we tidied it up for the open house). Looks cute huh?

Looking at the photos now I realize I forgot to trim the ribbon on the corners....it's kinda sticking out - oops

I am just so pleased that a dollar store frame and some ribbon turned out so cute. Love that crop a dile!! I'm not sure I would've tried this without it ;)

~MAGOO~

More Christmas Stills.......

2010-12-16T22:43:00.001-05:00

Are you sick of these yet? :) :)

There's just something so magical about photographing Christmas ornaments with the lights low and the tree lights twinkling. Enjoy :)

~MAGOO~

2010-12-15T11:21:00.001-05:00

~MAGOO~

'CHEW'BACCA

2010-12-13T00:33:00.002-05:00

or occasionally known as Max. Also known as 'your' dog (as I angrily remind my husband when such things happen that shouldn't).

No we don't live in little rock, we are in Canada - just used for fun folks :) He's still guilty.

Our dear Max has a very good life. Walks every day, meals on a daily schedule, water, toys, the regular marathon sessions of petting from our mini magoo. Lets just say he's got it good.

So how does he repay his wonderful human people? He Chews.

But not HIS toys. oh no. Gasp! at the thought.

He prefers more gourmet offerings - such as:

Mini Magoos brand new winter coat.

*sigh* still chewed from this angle too....

But, not quite satiated, we were at a Christmas party on Saturday. Planning ahead knowing Maxi Pad (as we fondly call him - yes even out loud in the backyard and our neighbours hear us) would be in his kennel from around 4pm onwards, I take him for a wonderfully freezing walk (Max was nice and toasty while his human conterpart got frozen eyelashes and snot stuck to her nose). 5km later I bring him home, give him a drink and put him to bed with something new to chew.

Later that evening around 8:30 hubby drives home to let Max out and for his supper. Max refuses to eat, even though hubby waited over 20 minutes for him to eat, back down to the kennel). Hubby comes back to the party, all is well.

We get home, happy and tired - take max out, he eats supper now. I go tuck mini magoo into bed - and catch CHEWBACCA in the act!!

He looksat me, his left paw slowly rises (the accused paw that is holding the boot in place for his very sharp teeth to shred and destroy in 5 seconds). He drops it like a hot potato and makes for his place on the rug.

Looks like I came out into the kitchen just in time.....

I wondered just how much damage he could have done if it hadn't been so late and read a story to mini magoo. Dear hubby wouldn't have had a boot left I think. hmmmm gourmet Columbia rubber - was it good Max? Not enough fibre in your diet? how about those apples I gave you this morning, maybe we should try All bran?

And what about this toy?? Why don't you chew that? Or is it just more comfortable to lie on it and use as a pillow??

Oh yes Max.......your better guard your stuff......Humans can chew stuff and I'm a little hungry right now.....and not above revenge :)

~MAGOO~

Max doesn't like the Christmas tree.

2010-12-10T23:48:00.004-05:00

Man, let me tell ya, if this dog's looks could kill.....well, that tree and all it's decorations and lights would be outta the house. He sniffs it, stares at it, he really really does not like that tree.

This should be a very interesting first Christmas with you pal. Wait till the presents get put under there, another thing in your house that just doesn't belong....

Just don't lift your leg on my tree ok? :)

~MAGOO~

A fun new Christmas project to try!!

2010-12-08T14:23:00.000-05:00

And it's cheap! (My favourite words lately lol!).

I was searching for some crafts that I could do for Christmas that were cheap and would make the house more festive.

I have loved these tin stars forever....but they are so expensive at Michael's stores (and that's the only place I've seen them where I live).

Enter the Blog: Choose to Thrive

The stars must have been aligned just right, (no pun intended) the odds of finding this by accident.... I don't know how, but I'm so glad I stumbled upon her tutorial to make my own fake tin stars!!

I included the link to her blog ~ and the link to her tutorial (it's very well written I might add) you will find here---> Tin Stars from a Cake Pan

It's simply genius! I have bought 3 large oven liner tray thingies and I plan to work on these as soon as I print out the template!!

Then I can take pictures with my camera (ulterior motive here, he he he).

Thank you to this wonderful blogger for sharing a great project :)

~MAGOO~

A Nikon D90?? What?!?!

2010-12-07T23:07:00.001-05:00

I would like to welcome our newest addition to our family : the Nikon D90. ahhhh.

She's here, she's really here. My wonderful hubby brought this baby home today - he knew I was having a bad day (and our anniversary is coming very soon) so he gave me my gift early. I cried, I don't deserve this, it's too much. He insisted I unwrap it and start snapping - how did I get so lucky? I love my man :)

Laura, get ready for the Christmas photos...a photo a day of the ornaments on my tree...now you'll have tons to use as wallpaper on your laptop :)

oh, did I mention I love my husband and he is the best?! Now, how do you top this gift when a) you are out of work, b) want to make something homemade and c) but what?

any ideas? I'll be making a special supper, but man, how do you compare to a camera? ( I know he doesn't care, but I do, I want to return the happy feeling :)

I noticed a difference IMMEDIATELY. Seriously. I found the section for focal points (yes they really DO make a difference). And look, see just on top of the candle where it's all nice and sharp? I focused right there and it worked!

Straight out of Camera shot:

Didn't need a tri pod for this, just put my elbows on the table.

Settings used were:

Shutter: 1/160

Aperture: 1.8 (I love how the background is so soft and lovely)

ISO: 320 *can I just take a moment to say how AMAZING the ISO selection is on this? talk about an upgrade from my D40x (shhh, don't let her hear you say that, it might hurt her feelings).

White Balance: I set it to tungsten, and it's not so bad like this.

oh man, oh man....this is heaven. So sorry but suffice to say there will be lots of photos added daily :)

Now, this little birdie caught my eye :) So I shot at her from many different angles and many different focal points. I also took my ISO off of automatic shortly after my first few shots...with great success! I'll explain as we go along:

Birdie 1

ISO- 1400 (woah, I can't believe it's that high, it's not too bad, not much grain, I'm so happy) but right after I checked my info on the LCD screen I went in and changed it to what I wanted.

Shutter Speed: 1/80

Aperture: f 1.8

White Balance: Tungsten again.

I didn't edit this either - I wanted to show everyone just how awesome these are without photoshop first.

Next little birdie:

Shutter: 1/20

Aperture: f1.8

WB: as above

ISO:320 (if you look closely the background is much smoother now)

Tweet tweet!:

Shutter:1/25

Aperture: f1.8

WB: as above

ISO: 320

Now this one was fun - look at the feathers on her body (not the tail) and notice how sharp they are? Notice the face isn't sharp? That's how awesome the focusing is on this! yipee!

And along came another Birdie:

used same settings as above, just a different angle.

Straight on- how cute.

same settings as above for this shot.

ok, 2 more before you get tired of her, but she's just so sparkly and feathery, and soft!!! =LOVE!

Ok, so that's enough of sweet tweety...but look out Laura, tomorrow I'm snapping more ornaments-just for you! :) :)

Night everyone!

~MAGOO~

Focal Points...

2010-12-03T23:46:00.002-05:00

So tricky - I've only got 3 on this camera - the one I'd like to upgrade to has 12!!!

S'okay as long as I have time to fiddle and watch closely through the viewfinder.

Used Pioneer Woman's Actions (yes again!). I used Lovely & Ethereal (apparently it's becoming my favourite) and Dim the lights.

My ISO was bumped up to 800 since I was inside at night and my aperture on this lens only starts at a 4 so I did my best (my favourite part is fiddling until I get the right shot - I took 46 pics of this flower and I learned a lot from the bad photos).

So, seeing as I had some noise, I thought I'd better darken the background instead of trying to fix it.

Before......I only cropped to 5x7 otherwise it's SOOC.

After some photoshop fun :)

I find it's the subtle differences that make is so dramatic don't you??
(and yes it's supposed to be slightly fuzzy and 'etheral' when you zoom in lol)

~MAGOO~

It's snowing today....

2010-12-03T14:30:00.005-05:00

And they are the most beautiful fluffy snowflakes I've ever seen - I love winter.

Seeing as there is more than one way to skin a cat (what a terrible analogy! lol!) - here is more than one way to edit the same photo! :)
I'll update these photos soon with fstop, iso, shutter speed soon.

ha! fooled ya, threw a different one in there at the last minute :)

Are you getting in the Christmas mood yet? :)

~MAGOO~

Another Pioneer Woman Action example

2010-12-02T23:23:00.001-05:00

Thought I'd show you another photo I played around with using the Pioneer Woman Actions (both actions used are from set 1) I used PW's Black and White, and Lovely & Ethereal.

I thought I'd make it a selective coloured black and white - something different :)

So, if you really like the effects I've been trying - go and check out her incredible site here:

The Pioneer Woman

Have a great night!

Magoo

Actions in Photoshop...who knew?

2010-12-01T23:14:00.003-05:00

Who knew they'd be so darn COOL!!?? I know I didn't!

I'm not sure exactly what rock I've been living under....but I stumbled upon and learned about Photoshop Actions today.

I downloaded some amazing FREE ones and I even *gulp* tried them out.

so cool.

I almost peed my pants with the results I got with just a push of a button - oh did I mention they were FREE??

The amazingly talented lady who is offering these actions (she has some for Elements users too! yay!) goes by the name REE. She is the woman behind the website titled: The Pioneer Woman.

I just couldn't believe this place - all the information, all the tips, the wonderfully written posts...and she is generous enough to offer free actions on her website. I have been having so much fun trying out these actions all day :)

Seriously though, if you have some time (and a cup of coffee) go visit her site - my favourite tab is her Photography tab - I got lost in there all morning :)

Here are some of my before and after shots using her actions (and adjusted to my taste, that's the beauty of actions!!!). With actions you can adjust the opacity of each layer, you can turn off certain layers the action has run, everything is customizable to the look you are going for in that photo! I hope you enjoy my very first attempt at using actions.

Next Set:

Last one: so lovely.....

Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my experiments :)

Remember if you want to give these a try yourself there are 2 sets she is offering on her website - and there are actions for Photoshop Elements users as well! There are also several other actions she has available to use, just scroll through and enjoy :)

p.s. don't say I didn't warn ya that you'll end up spending all day there reading her witty posts and helpful hints!

The Pioneer Woman

Have a great day!

Magoo

"But Mom, what do YOU know about fashion?" insert innocent looking eyes here

2010-11-10T08:07:00.001-05:00

Mom? "I like Chicken, especially from cows"....

2010-11-10T08:06:00.002-05:00

sucked into the digital vortex....and I kinda like it :)

2010-11-05T15:13:00.001-04:00

Photoshop and Illustrator have been calling my name lately....

Partly due to taking some awesome-fabulous-amazing classes at Renee Pearson and partly how mess free digital scrapping and designing is. Look ma - no glitter in my hair! :) :)

My first little project is playing around with watercolour.....I really love this technique and could see myself using this a lot. Once I get my brushes all packaged up I will be offering my first .abr brush file to those of you that are into digi :) Commercial use will be A-ok with these - no attribution required. I'll get into that later ;)

This one was a challenge to use a different Type Face for each letter, I loved this challenge - it made me pay attention to x height and heirarchy as well as ascender and descenders....it gave me some good ideas for another project!

That's it for now, going to break out the 'real paper' and glue this weekend :) :)

~MAGOO~

So this is what it's like to be retired?

2010-11-05T13:47:00.000-04:00

Hi all, so this was my very first week at home-

no job to rush off to at 5:30 in the morning, no 12-18 hour days to get through.....

I get to drive the kiddos to school, and I get to see them at the end of the day :)

I get to make it to swim team practices.....and I get to make and eat dinner with my family.....

aside from not having a paycheck coming in, being home for a little while is pretty darn good!

Don't get me wrong, I love to work - I loved my job. Sadly the funding didn't come through and I am hoping to get recalled in April when the budget gets hashed out again with the government. We'll see.

In the mean time I'm going to take my lemons and make some lemonade :)

Keep your eyes peeled for some fun holiday projects coming soon from me - yes I have time to craft!!

Wishing you all a fabulous Friday!

xoxo

~MAGOO~

It's been pretty busy around here....

2010-10-19T22:23:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone!!!

I wish I could have been a better blogger this last little while....but sometimes work just won't let me :)

I've been taking some fun classes over at Renee Pearson.com and here is a little bit of what I've been creating: I used Photoshop CS4 for these, but they would work in PSE as well. Both projects are my own design, just using the techniques taught in class.

Chipboard Text in the TextFx Class

Vanishing Lines assignment in Text Fx Class

These are all for digital scrapbooking of course, but it certainly gives me some ideas for some Christmas cards using REAL paper lol!!! *especially that top one :) :)

I think I am finally getting the hang of this! (let me know what you think though, could you see yourself using that phrase, or maybe that chipboard on a layout??). Just curious :)

Hope everyone is doing well and I will talk to you all soon!!!

~MAGOO~

oooooh- Cricut Imagine !!!

2010-09-15T18:45:00.002-04:00

Wow, drooling here......maybe someday I will be able to own this AMAZING machine....

Seriously though....what I could do with this....*whistling. Wow.

Click on the picture to take you to the Imagine website which has so much info on this machine it will answer almost all your questions....Is it Christmas yet? Maybe for Christmas???

*Maybe if I stay off the naughty list *wink *wink.

Have a great night everyone - and to those who bought your Imagine machines yesterday during the HSN World launch.....Congrats!! and I'M SO JEALOUS :) :) :)

*sorry had to remove the linked picture....proprietary information and all that. when I fix the link with the proper domain I will put it back up to those who aren't familiar with the Imagine. Have a great day everyone!

~MAGOO~

Life Is a Beach....Seriously????!!!!

2010-08-31T03:00:00.101-04:00

Hi Everyone!! Magoo here after a very long crafting hiatus.....how have you all been?!?!?

LIAB aka: Life is a Beach. I recall all the hoopla over this stinkin' cart and missing images...yada yada....I bought the cart....AND NEVER EVER USED IT! Gasp! This is the very first time I've made something with this cart....so I'm super happy today about that!

You all know I'm mainly card based...rarely try anything outside of the box...so....ANOTHER card from moi! (I saw that yawn! hey!)

p.s. my camera battery died, had to use hubby's camera....I hate this little point and shoot thing....sorry the pics aren't as clear and sharp as the could be :(

I used 3 beautiful flowers from this cart....I circled in yellow the layers I used as well.

For the layers (the inside parts of the flower) I used Hide Contour function on Gypsy so I could cut out the insides using different patterned paper and placed it in different areas on my Gypsy Mat.

This is a Photo of the base of the card cut out on my mat...I GROUPED the 3 flowers together...and then added a rectangle - grouped it to the flower group. Then I pushed my weld button and VOILA!

Then I got out my MS score board and GENTLY scored the small areas that attach to the base so they fold easily.

Once I had all my flowers cut out, I tried Dry Fitting them to see how I wanted it to look. I ended up liking having the center flower be the focal point. Then as you can see I picked out some matching glitter - BRING ON THE BLING!!

The all time easiest and BEST way to put glitter on your cuts is to use a xyron machine. I have the little X one and this larger guy. I forgot I had the smaller one and remembered only after I had started running my cuts through! argh :) Once you have run it through, rub your fingers over it to adhere the glue a little bit more. Then peel off the back and you are left with a very sticky cut. Grab your Glitter and Pour!

After I pour the glitter all over, I get a clean piece of paper and gently push down on top of my cut while all the glitter is still on. This pushes the glitter onto the paper without getting it all over your fingers. Then you can just bang your shape on the table and it's just so pretty!!!

The rest of the glitter cuts (the flower stems) all finished.

Don't forget to ink the edges of the rest of your flowers :)

Seeing as I wanted the center flower to be the focal point, I thought I should use pop dots and get some dimension going on.

Random photo of my newest and most favorite craft tool!! Cuts like butter and straight as an arrow EVERY TIME!!! I'm in Love! :) :)

And Now for the card all finished ~ I really hope you like it!

forgot to show you all what it looks like open....and I haven't the faintest idea of what I should put on the inside! :)

So great to be back here at Tuesday Treats!!!
See you all Next Month!!

~MAGOO~

oh! I used American Crafts Paper (Let's Play)...it cuts so amazing!

File will be available for download on my blog when I get home from work today....my G is officially out of juice and happily charging away right now :)

Feeling a little like Alice In Wonderland???

2010-08-12T00:08:00.002-04:00

That's what I thought of when I snapped these pics today! :) :)

~MAGOO~

WOOOO HOOOO!

2010-08-11T23:56:00.001-04:00

The mail lady caught me today in my driveway.......guess what she had??

MY NEW LENS!!!!! :) :) :) :)

I am in LOVE!!! One of the first things I noticed about it was just how much heavier it is than my kit lens. I wasted no time ripping open the box in my driveway and getting my camera out of my car. I put the lens on and started snapping right away. I am so happy I bought this lens! I have a bunch of pictures to share...and yes these are of dogs again...the next post of pics will be much more interesting :)

MAX and HARMONY meet :)

What' chu lookin' at???

YES! I finally got him!! (I totally snuck up on him lol!)


Little Miss Attitude :)

I hope you all have a wonderful day!!

~MAGOO~

At the Cottage yesterday.....

2010-08-08T11:59:00.002-04:00

And here are some of the random pics I snapped!! I thought I would try to find things that would have lots of texture or something perspective-ly interesting....HOPE YOU LIKE :)

Max....doesn't wander to far from dd. Flopping down on freshly built sand castles is not a welcome behavior....but she loves the company :)

I came out to the cottage today to be pleasantly surprised by 3 sunflower plants growing in a recently cleared area. Look~I even caught the little busy worker bee on his travels...

Tools of the trade...love the rustic look of this...that splitter gets used a lot out here :)

Moss grows in the most curious of places don't you think?

I loved the perspective on this....and how well worn the handle on this shovel is too :) another tool of the trade lol!

I just loved the texture on this log, so cool how anything near the water gets all this growth all over it....neat!

A favourite passtime at the cottage - MAKING STEW!!! and no, I'm not hungry :0

My Max....oh boy does he HATE my camera....that was the 'look' of enough already lady!

Ever watchful.

At this point in the day all I could get was the back of his head....he refused to look when I called his name...he's too smart for his own good lol!

hmmmmmm, more stew....anyone hungry? We'll share!

Weathered wood. Grabbed this pic in a huge pile we need to have cleared off the property.

just a cool looking stump.

I loved the perspective of this. It really does jut out above your head...again this is in the pile that need to be cleared out.

gettin down and dirty :)

Loved how the bright blue just popped against the rust in the chain and the texture of the rock...I think this is my favourite pic. I might turn it black and white and do a selective colour on the blue hook...how neat would that look?

Some rope...neat texture again :)

Very old Muskoka chair...sits right near the lake and it shows :)

Just a shot of bright red in a sea of green and tree bark...thought it was cute :)

Hope you all enjoyed some pics from our cottage yesterday.....it's amazing how different things look when you see them through a lens. Getting down on your knees or belly really changes the angle and perspective...try it - it's fun!

~Magoo

'The Classics' - a Birthday Pop Up Card

2010-08-07T11:49:00.002-04:00

Hi Everyone!!

Last week I found myself making a really fun birthday card. Instead of reaching for my newer cartridges, I thought I'd dust of my 'older' carts and see what little treasures were hiding on them :)

So out came Stretch Your Imagination, and Celebrations. I REALLY love Celebrations...have you seen the AMAZING cuts on this cart? There isn't anything missing that you'd need to make a party invite, b-day card, a birthday banner....it's all about the party! I do want to warn you though, some cuts are better cut out at a much larger size...unless you are working with thinner cardstock (I did have to re-cut a few since I was using a thicker/textured cardstock). Or, if you still want the design small, use your cricut markers for just an outline....just an idea to throw out there :) I haven't used my markers yet....I've had them for over a year....I'll add that to my list of projects to do! :)

So, grab your SYI (stretch your imagination from here on out) and flip to page 61. For the front of my card I used the LAYERS feature, the SILHOUETTE feature and the BLACKOUT setting. The hardest part for me was picking the paper and trying to make sure it would co-ordinate once cut out. So have fun picking your paper!! :) :)

Then I grabbed my new I-rock and glued all sorts of bling all over....and for my candles I used patterned paper and STICKLES!! (aren't they sparkle-y?? ).

For the inside of the card I scored a piece of cardstock in half and for the pop out I measured 3 1/4" in length and 2 1/4" apart. Once it was cut I pushed it in towards me to form the step that I would glue my happy birthday to.

I got out Celebrations and flipped to page 124. I used the regular cut, the Shadow and Blackout feature for 3 layers of this cut. I ended up only using 2 layers for the happy (as I liked the patterned paper that was showing). So I stickled the 'A' in Happy and glued the 3 layers for the birthday. I cut out a cute little b-day hat that can be found on page 103 and added some more stickles - black this time :). Then for the stack of presents behind the 'Happy' I flipped to page 119 and cut out the Shadow, the Blackout and Shift Blackout. I glued them all together and stuck it behind Y in happy. Then I just pop dotted both to the pop out portion and VOILA!

It's a very easy pop out.....the time consuming part was gluing the layers together....so it looks really great but not all that difficult. :)

Hope you like it as much as I do!

~MAGOO~

Getting a new lens for my Camera!!!

2010-08-01T15:45:00.001-04:00

WAHOOOO!!!

I'll never understand why I waited so long. I just finally decided that although I'm not getting the one I really want....that this lens will do the job that I want it to. I'm not a professional photographer BUT I do need a lens that will give me the shot I want.

The lesson today folks is: It's not about what camera you have....it's all about the lens! Forking out the dough for a good piece of glass should be looked at as an investement. How many times have you 'thought' you got the shot...only to be disappointed that your images came out blurry, too dark or grainy....just not right. Get yourself a great lens....you won't regret it.

This is my NEWEST addition to my growing collection of lenses. The Nikon DX AF-s 35mm 1.8F!!!
It's on it's way from B&H Photo & Video it is an extremely reputable online store....Candice Stringham (a very well known professional photographer and teacher of photography) recommended this store and I have not been disappointed!

Ooooh! I am COUNTING the days until this lovely arrives!

Isn't that just the cutest pouch to put it in? Love it.

Can't wait to post some pics as soon as I get this puppy in my hot little hands!!

Have a great Sunday everyone! :) :)

Magoo~

Drumroll Please...............

2010-07-31T11:28:00.001-04:00

Ok, so I had this post set to post at 10am....I'm not sure why blogger didn't post it :(

And the winner of the hard to find and rarely spotted in M's ATG is:

DLESMITH!!!! From the Cricut Circle Message Board :) :)

Congratulations my dear!!! I've sent you a PM through the board requesting your address. Monday is a Holiday for me in Ontario so I will mail your BRAND NEW PINK ATG on Tuesday!!!

Thank you everyone for entering, and it's nice to see some new followers too! :) :)

Magoo

PINK ATG DRAWING CLOSED :)

2010-07-30T22:13:00.003-04:00

WOW!!!

I knew these things were hard to find but............HOLY COW!!

You guys blew me away with how many entered!!!

Thank you also to those of you have joined my blog!! What a nice surprise - becoming a follower wasn't required to enter :) :) :)

Winner will be announced tomorrow morning at 10:00am EST (yes I like the number 10).

SEE YOU ALL TOMORROW! :) :) GOOD LUCK!!!

Pink Rubber Boots....

2010-07-27T21:21:00.002-04:00

Just a little bit of digital goodness.....I LOVE MUD!!! and I have a little helper who does too! :}

So I am not the best blogger.....

2010-07-26T21:14:00.002-04:00

Life has been busy...so busy I haven't been able to craft (or too tired). Since I wasn't making anything I thought that meant that I shouldn't be posting stuff on my blog.....but who said it was just a craft blog??

Silly me....I will be posting much more often....it may not be crafty but at least I will be able to still see some of you every now and then :)

So, with that said please accept my apology by way of Blog Candy! I've also opened up this giveaway to the Cricut Circle messageboard guys and gals as well. They have been so wonderful and oh so enabling! :) :)

Here is the back story behind this giveaway.........

Just thought I'd stop in at Michaels today as I was in town for work.....I had three 40% off coupons burning a hole in my pocket....

And wouldn't you know it??? There it was on the bottom rung....2 count em' 2 pink ATG's.

immediately I thought of all you ladies and gents just pulling your hair out, driving hundreds of miles all over the U.S. and Canada....and here there are 2 sitting...and looking oh so lonely........

So, what did I do? I picked one up, marched over to the cash and used my 40% off coupon on one....

So...... in the true spirit of all you Cricut Circle enablers.....*you all know who you are* those that enabled me to buy the I rock, the pink ATG and the Tonic Guillotine Paper Trimmer.....

I am going to give this lovely pink ATG away on my blog and hopefully one of you lucky enablers will win!!!

I am not requiring you to become a follower of my blog ~ to be perfectly honest I've been so busy that I've become a BAD blogger....so I'm offering this as an apology to what faithful blog viewers I have left and all of you wonderful enablers :)

Giveaway will close Friday July 30th 10:00pm Eastern Standard Time Zone.

*when you leave a comment, please leave me your MB name that way I can search for you for a mailing addy if you win*

Max and his ice :) :)

2010-07-25T22:43:00.000-04:00

AWESOME SHOPPING DAY!!

2010-07-20T23:54:00.001-04:00

So I'm down visiting my mom on my vacation (hooray!) and because she lives near so many major cities, I took advantage of all the shopping!

Today we hit up the Michaels in Cambridge and Waterloo - SCORE!!!

I almost NEVER find what I initially go in there for...I usually leave disappointed. BUT NOT TODAY.

Today found me picking up the I ROCK tool - OMG can you say BLING!!!! yes, I'm smiling as I type this - you all know how much I love BLING! (again in bold cause I love bling!).

After that successful purchase, my first M's conquest left me hungry for more.....and I smelled new prey in Waterloo.....off we went.

It was in Waterloo that I found my BEST PURCHASE EVER!! I was able to nail down and capture the ever elusive PINK ATG GUN!! WOOT WOOT!!! got that last one don't cha know?!! ;) totally worth the drive :) I also had a %50 coupon that was practically jumping out of my purse to be used.

Great hunting er I mean shopping trip today.....I can't wait to get home and make something!!

Wishing you all luck on your next hunting/shopping expedition!! :) :)

Magoo

MEET MAX

2010-07-20T20:09:00.000-04:00

Please welcome our newest and cutest member of our family......MAX.

He is 6 months old and should be close to 100 pounds when he is full grown :)

He just got neutered this past Friday...and I didn't grab a photo of him with his cone on....poor guy ~ I will post a video of him eating his chunks of ice when he is himself again. For now here are a few photos of this sweetheart :)

I THINK MAX IS GOING TO BE JUST WONDERFUL :)

Hi.....I'm still here

2010-07-11T23:48:00.000-04:00

You'd just never know it :)

how does time slip away so quickly???

I just wanted to check in....the Digi Class I took was AWESOME!

I just have to put my kit together...then submit if for evaluation....and then there's the TEST. GULP.

OOOOH! We also just got a new dog! He's totally amazing - he is so kind and has a great temperament.

It was really warm and muggy today and our puppy is 6months old. His molars are coming in poor thing....so I took some small round tupperware containers and filled them with water and froze them.

YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN HIM PLAY!!! His tail was wagging...and he was running all over the house with the ice discs. I couldn't stop laughing....he chewed them up and truly enjoyed himself.

I'm hoping tomorrow I can get a video of him up playing with his ice.

Thanks for reading my ramblings......life is good...even if it moves at warp speed. :)

oh yeah....our new family member's name is MAX (he was already named when we got him).

How is everyone else doin???

2010-04-30T16:36:00.006-04:00

Where would we be in this world without a little imagination? :)

Ahhhhhhhh.....Sunday

2010-04-18T22:28:00.003-04:00

Such a nice sunny day today....got my laundry on the line....my hands in the dirt (yeah I'm a wannabe gardener on most days), played frisbee and blew bubbles....

WHAT DID YOU DO TODAY? :)

Creative Team Search Entries.....Wish me luck please!

2010-04-15T23:43:00.002-04:00

Here are my entries for the Jessica Sprague Creative Team Search. You would NOT believe the talent that I have seen in the gallery!!! I'm happy that I had enough courage just to put my layouts in.....rejection is always hard on the ol' ego.....but don't take my word for it ~ go see for yourself how amazing these folks are-------> *CREATIVE TEAM SEARCH GALLERY*

I just want to mention too ~ the photos are SO washed out on here....CLICK on the picture and the photo will be so much more CLEAR AND VIBRANT!

Layout #1

Ok, here we go.......

Background paper used- JSprague Kraft

Brushes used- House of 3 Botanicals Swirls Set, NRJ Sanding Brush.

I used the NRJ Sanding Brush by stamping it over top of the swirl brushes and clipped the sanding into the Swirls for more of a grunge effect.

Used the Patter Fill adjustment layer on both mats for the photos. Used the overlay setting and reduced the opacity a bit.

Used the Satin Pattern Fill on the ribbon of colour just beneath the photos to give it a more rumpled appearance.

Blue Bow- Amy Teets (Sunporch Collection)

Fonts Used: Rebekah's Birthday (Fishy Face!), Renaissance (2009), Large Mime Font (The Best of...)

Also used several techniques to enhance and edit the photos from JS Good to Great Workflow Class.

Layout #2

Background Paper- SMD_MayFlowers Kit

Brushes Used- Grunge brush on edges of page by- Dumpsterbrushes by DUB

Fonts Used: Zapfino (Title), Apple Chancery (journaling)

Used the Custom shape tool to make 2 clipping masks for the photos.

After clipping photos into the shapes I used the Stroke outline technique to 'mat' the photos.

Used photo editing techniques from Good to Great workflow Class

Layout #3

No background paper used. All I did was use a Pattern Adjustment layer (Darkcoarse Weave) to give the appearance of texture in the background.

Font used: 1942 Report

Brushes Used: Becs Stock_Wing Brush set, Liquid Brush Set by Boyingo Paw

I used the Rectangular Marquee tool to draw 4 shapes - had feathering set to 25. Clipped photos into the shapes I created. Then used the Marquee tool to 'cut' or delete 3 round edges from each photo - leaving only 1 corner rounded on all 4 pics.

Used the Rectangular Marquee tool again for the matting of the title. Used the Fill option with white and reduced the opacity to 50%. Added a subtle drop shadow as well.

Out hiking - found a cute little place.....

2010-04-11T14:57:00.008-04:00

And this little pretty right here is my FIRST SHOT IN MANUAL MODE!!!

Yep, I chose the aperture, the shutter speed and ISO to give me the correct exposure. I haven't done ANY editing to this pic....so NO colour punch up in Photoshop...you wouldn't believe the rusty colour on this when I printed it out....for some reason it's a little washed out on the computer monitor....oh well!! It's totally gorgeous in real life....I know....what's so gorgeous about a metal water pipe?

I'm outta control!!

Another year already? That was too fast!!

2010-04-09T05:20:00.000-04:00

Can you guess what day it is?????

Yep! Another year older for me!!

Off to work I go - I really should have taken today off.....I want to sleep in! LOL!! :) :)

poor Chester.....I'm at it again!

2010-04-06T00:07:00.003-04:00

*This is a duplicate post - original post can be found at Tuesday Treats*

Hi Everyone!!! Myamagoo here with my take on page 126 of Tags, Bags, Boxes and More.

I've never used this cut before and wasn't really sure what to do with it.

Then one day in the mail not that long ago - I received a package from our very own SASSYLADY.

Once I opened the package and saw all the colourful feathers in there I KNEW what I was going to do with them :)

I started with designing the cake box using the blackout feature so I would only have score marks (to help guide me on where to fold). For this project I thought I would keep the project to a 12x12 mat....however you could easily expand this and make it much larger for whatever you need.

Here is the cake box after all scoring and folding has been done.

Next I cut out patterned paper to dress up the cake box a bit.

Then I adhered those pieces to my cake box and drew lines with a white pen to mimc stitching (sadly I don't own a sewing machine). Then used a pushpin to add some holes to try and make it look more realistic. Not sure if I accomplished that or not :)

Next it was time to add my favourite red WACKY TACKY TAPE ~ this is the best tape to put boxes together with (in my opinion) as I don't own an ATG gun.

Once the tape was peeled off and I put the box together it was time to do something with the top of the box. I know that normally people tend to make this cut look just like a piece of cake, but I really wanted to use those feathers that Chester donated (Sassylady I'm calling the SPCA on you - he needs those feathers - look at the vest he has to wear now!).

I digress, I wanted to make a nest and decided to make my own. I used a branch from the cartridge that started it all (Straight from the Nest) and welded it together to make my nest.

This branch comes with leaves to fit by using the shift feature and voila! Perfect leaves for the branches. I cut everything out all at one time - so convenient ~ JUST make sure you place your mat in the right DIRECTION....don't ask....lets just say I used more paper than I needed to because I wasn't paying attention lol!

Next I wanted to run the leaves through my cuttlebug - and you got it - I used Swiss Dots again :) :)

After gluing all the leaves onto the branches, I started adding pop dots to my branches to add some height to the nest that is going to sit on top.

Once I had layered all 4 welded branches onto the top of the box, I got out poor Chester's feathers and slid them in underneath and in between openings in the branches. Don't they make a lovely home for those Cadbury mini eggs?? (those eggs didn't last long after the photo shoot! yummy!_

Just a couple more pics of Chester's feathers ~ isn't he and SASSYLADY so kind? :) :) :)

Thanks for joining us today at Tuesday Treats (and Thursday too!). Be sure to come back THIS THURSDAY to be dazzled by our favorite layout design genius SASSYLADY!!!

Gypsy File will be available on my BLOG for downloading - it is a 3 page file and uses Gypsy wanderings for the pieces on the sides of the box, as well as branches from Straight from the Nest.

Gypsy file available for download HERE

I am a MAC user and unable to provide a DS version.

Lean on Me.....

2010-04-01T17:42:00.009-04:00

The creative assignment for this week??

"Find a beautiful lyric you relate to, that makes you smile, or that you listen to when you are sad; something you love and that creates a connection with you. Then, photograph that lyric."

I drove all around town today looking for that right 'something' to photograph. I found it. This sad lonely building just peeking out behind a hill in the countryside...perfect.
The original picture was colour - but I thought the black and white was more moody. Did a few other Photoshop 'tweaks' and voila!

Click on Image for a much clearer view! :)

Image is copyrighted-Magoo 2010

Lean on Me - Bill Withers
Sometimes in our lives we all have pain

We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there's always tomorrow

Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on

Please swallow your pride
If I have things you need to borrow
For no one can fill those of your needs
That you don't let show

Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on

If there is a load you have to bear
That you can't carry
I'm right up the road
I'll share your load
If you just call me

So just call on me brother, when you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that you'd understand
We all need somebody to lean on

Lean on me when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
Till I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on

Lean on me...

APERTURES....what an interesting concept :)

2010-03-29T22:22:00.003-04:00

Learned a lot about apertures today.....finally understand what the numbers mean and depth of field. Now I know how to get a background blur! YAY!!

Feel free to click on the image for a much better view :)

A special day today.....

2010-03-27T15:53:00.001-04:00

Today is my baby sister's birthday today :) :) She has grown up to be a smart, funny, hardworking, caring wonderful woman!

I'm so proud of you kiddo!!! HAVE THE BESTEST DAY EVER!!! BIG HUGS FROM ALL OF US!!!! XXX OOO

Lovin' Photoshop today!!!

2010-03-22T23:31:00.007-04:00

Today was the first day of my 6 week photography course ~ I am so happy to finally learn how to use ANY other option other than Automatic! YAY!!

Today's lesson was on shutter speed. I decided to enhance and add some coolness to this pic in photoshop, while challenging myself to stay within a MONOCHROMATIC colour scheme of GRAY :)

Tell me what you think? :) :)

Meet Chester.....

2010-03-14T14:04:00.001-04:00

Yes, this glorious bird is our new Gypsy Mascot! No I have NOT lost my mind.....I will find it later today :)

Thank you to Sheila and Pam who made me laugh so much yesterday my stomach hurt!!

The three of us got creative and this is what happened......his name is Chester :)

Yes he is wearing clothes....Y M C A anyone???? :) :)

Thanks for the laughs girls!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHER B!!!

2010-03-11T20:41:00.003-05:00

Well Cher, I TOLD you I was going to sing you happy birthday.......so here goes!!

Now everyone else - don't laugh too hard....I've had a stuffy/runny nose all week!

Click here if you can't see the video

Wishing you just the BEST day ever!!! Wish we could all be there to sing you happy birthday, and have a slice of cake!!! ummmmmmm cake.....yum!!!

It's gone to the Birds.........

2010-03-11T17:15:00.001-05:00

I found this cute picture just by googling coloured chickens here is the site it came from http://pixdaus.com/?sort=tag&tag=chicken

THANK YOU CHER FOR MAKING ME THINK OUTSIDE OF THE BOX ON HOW TO GET ME SOME COLOURED FEATHERS LOL!!!!!!!

Ruffles......and a very late shout out to Cher B!!!

2010-03-02T08:29:00.006-05:00

First of all I would like to say what an AMAZING job CHER did on her Tuesday Treats project!! I was totally blown away and I feel so awful that I didn't get a chance to comment on her adorable bags!! CHER they are the BEST!!! do you hear me?? the BEST!!!! :):)

Second of all.....I left this project to the absolute LAST minute...and I mean LAST....as I type this blog post it is 11:55pm on a Monday evening and I should be in bed :) That being said I still wanted to try and get this out somewhat on time.....sorry for the delay!!!! This working for a living thing....geez......

My mission....should I choose to accept it is to create a purse from page 116 from Tags Bags Boxes and More. I'm so glad I did!! I DID NOT know this purse had the cutest little strap on it to do it up :) how sweet is that!?

Here's what I came up with folks :)

Oh don't you just LOVE ruffles???? Here is how I did it:

Now to put this cute little purse together.....

Start by laying out all your paper on your cutting mat - for those of you that are new: Remember to count how many squares your image takes up on your Gypsy screen as this corresponds to the squares on your cutting mat. You will get correct paper placement every time if you follow that tip :)

Next you will cut it either page 1 or page 2 - you can only cut 1 page at a time with this file.

Then go ahead and cut the second page once you get your paper on :)

Once you have everything cut out you can either start with scoring your purse, or you can assemble your little butterfly shaker. I decided to start scoring my purse.

When scoring....take your time to do this as accurately as you can. A well scored purse will result in a purse or box that assembles nicely, all edges line up properly and there aren't any smushed pieces of paper anywhere :)

And here she is all ready for assembly....

As you can see from the picture all the lines have been scored and the purse is starting to take shape. So BEFORE I glue the purse together I decided to start 'threading' my ribbon through my slots. I just went back out one side and brought the ribbon back in through the SAME slot to get a ruffle on the outside. Then I just moved up to the next slot with my ribbon from the INSIDE of the purse. Just work your way up and take the time to try and keep your ruffles even....this part takes patience :)

But if you do it right ~ you end up with this : :) :)

also if you look closely you can see that I just brought my ribbon right around to the other side on the bottom. It looks very pretty and you don't have to glue anything down.

Once you have your ribbon threaded, just get out your trusty WACKY TACKY TAPE and glue down those folds on the inside of your purse. Now I haven't found anything better than this stuff to hold purses together....so if you have something that you absolutely SWEAR by - please let me know :)

Once your purse is together you can move on to making your butterfly shaker and the front of the purse.

Remember that piece of purse that we pushed off the mat just to get the front piece? Go and grab that and get your exacto knife out too :) Using your ruler (cause I know my hand is NOT steady at all) and trim off all the excess pieces of the purse. That would be the tabs and the little pieces right at the bottom.

Just set the patterned paper aside for a little bit and grab your 3 butterfly cutouts and your clear transparency sheet (yay I still remembered what it's called!). Take 1 at a time and glue them on top of eachother. Your making a butterfly sandwich :) Once you have them all glued together stick down your transparency sheet on top (this is going to be the top of your shaker and also the side you glue your patterned paper onto.

Be sure to do a good job gluing all around the edges....you don't want any little beads getting out!!! They are a pain!

Here is the back of the shaker piece. As you can see I've glued it to the patterned paper and have added a clear window on the back too. I decided this was necessary after I had designed it on my G - I will add the extra piece in the file. I also went ahead and cut out a rectangle in white cardstock and ran it through the cuttlebug.

I thought this would look a lot nicer than just a boring orange background behind the beads. I used my all time fav- swiss dots for the embossing.....I just might have to buy another one it is so well used! lol!

That's it! Once you have the front all glued together and it's dry - go ahead and glue it to the front of your purse. You can take a hole punch and punch a much smaller hole (than what the cartridge had on it) for your brad to fit through. Just use the hole that is on the inside of the purse as a guide. Insert your brad and TA DA!! Finished!!! Not as hard as it looks eh????

Now go and find your FAV gems and glitter and pearls...whatever is your go to embelly and get to work dressing up that gorgeous butterfly :)

Love this pic....it really shows how well the cuttlebugging adds to the background of the shaker. Gotta love that BLING too ;)

oooohhhhhh RUFFLES!!!

Well, there you have it.....my take on page 116 of Tags Bags Boxes and More.....what do you think?

A hit or miss?

As soon as I get home from work tonight I will upload the gypsy file so you can all download it and take a look at the measurements. I figured I didn't need to add it in the post :)

HAVE A GREAT DAY!!! KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED I FINISH WORK ON TIME TONIGHT! LOL!!! :) :)

Can you help me?

2010-02-20T09:05:00.005-05:00

I just got an email from a friend of mine who wanted to let me know she couldn't read my blog.

She sent me an email and showed me what she was seeing - YIKES!!

IS ANYONE ELSE SEEING MY BLOG LIKE THIS????

If you are seeing all sorts of strange writing or my columns are wonky - just leave me a comment and also tell me what BROWSER and screen resolution you are using....this will help me a lot.....

Trying to create more breathing room on my blog has created a lot of little bugs :(

thanks for all your help :)

I DID IT!!! 3 column minima left stretch template!!!!

2010-02-17T20:03:00.001-05:00

I'M DOING THE HAPPY DANCE RIGHT NOW!!!!

I WANTED TO SEE IF I COULD DO IT........IT WAS TRICKY BUT....VOILA!!!

Supposedly the 'stretch' templates fit whatever size monitor your guests are viewing your blog on...the only problem that makes it tricky is you are dealing with 'floats' as this template is fluid....

BUT IT CAN BE DONE!!!!

NOW ONTO THE FUN STUFF......MAKING IT PRETTY!!!

THANKS FOR BEING SO PATIENT WHILE I MADE A MESS OF THINGS :)

UNDER CONSTRUCTION......

2010-02-16T17:34:00.004-05:00

Yep, just as a chameleon changes COLOURS....I am changing my blog again :)

I've changed my template and will be altering it later today. I am going with 3 columns and a FRESH new look - thank you Cinnabon LOL!!!

Things will be a bit wonky as I edit HTML code and move things around....I think the end result will be worth it and oh so pretty :)

A note to save.....

2010-02-15T12:04:00.009-05:00

I found this waiting for me on the kitchen table this morning :) :) I can't tell you enough how much this just MELTS my heart

Being grateful for the little things....

2010-02-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone :)

Normally I keep this blog pretty much related to crafting and don't usually chat very much about my life in outside of crafty blog world. Something happened this Friday to me that took me the whole weekend to digest and figure out how I was feeling....

After a terrible week at work I was SO looking forward to Friday rolling around (it sure took it's sweet time!). It looked like a fairly typical day....we might even finish early and I could take my lunch at the end of the day and get home by 2!!!! oh I was so HOPING this would happen - all I wanted to do was be home with my family....my job is NOT my life....life is when I'm at home :)

That was not going to happen this Friday......nor any other day this week-sigh.

It turns out I had to fly again (which is a big part of my job) about 40 mins north and do a pick up and return flight and complete a drop off....ok I think....not TOO bad...I should still get home by 3.......

I get to the airport with my partner and we get on our plane. This particular plane is not the one we usually fly in- our company has a dedicated plane but was already booked and other arrangements were made to fly with this company.

We hop on board - totally psyched that there is coffee and snacks - woo hoo!!! We buckle up and the pilots ask if we are good to go...we say "sure!! we have coffee and donuts - what more could we ask for?" We even joked that as long as we had our coffee who cares if the plane goes down? This is all of course in jest and the pilots remind us they will be doing some panel instrument change-outs mid flight. So in other words-don't panic when they start taking all the gauges off :)

The Pilot starts the plane, it starts humming, it's powering up.....he starts taxi-ing towards the runway for take off.....pilot 1 looks out the left window, checks again....says something to pilot 2 in his headset....they look out the left window again.... I take a look out the left window........ I see smoke!!! It's coming out of the left engine!!!

Then the Left Engine Fire gauge blinks on - I look out the window and I see flames!!!! Pilot 1 shuts down the plane, we are all calmly saying yeah engine 1 is on fire....I say; I think it would be a good idea to get off the plane now....pilot 2 (who I think is in shock right now) goes: uh yeah...good idea.

Pilot 1 is trying to get the fire extinguisher out from under his seat....it's STUCK....he's yanking on it and it's not budging.......we scramble out off the plane.....amazingly my partner and I BOTH still have a cup of coffee in our hands....AS IF!!!!

We go running towards our vehicle to grab our fire extinguisher before the engine and jet fuel decide to blow......and pilot 1 is now out of the plane and is running towards the terminal....

We get an extinguisher and the fire gets put out.....we stand mouths agape looking at the charred engine.

I make some phone calls and advised we were going to be behind schedule....I nonchalantly say - yeah our plane's engine caught on fire and we are going to be late. How odd to be so very calm and yet still know to make the necessary calls and then on to the next task....

We head back to the office while another plane is flying in from about 2 hours away....great, let's try this flying thing again.....woop woop.

I end up flying out around 2, successfully do the pick up and drop off and scurry my lucky little butt home.

When I say it took a whole weekend for the gravity of the situation and the potential catastrophe that could have so easily happened.....it really did take that long.

I was blessed that day.....someone was looking out for me- that's for sure. Crappy week at work? You BET I had one (I could easily say it was the worst week I have had since I've ben there)........Perspective? Yep, I gained a whole lot of that.....maybe my week wasn't so absolutely terrible after all. I mean, I got to go home to my family, my life.

Drumrollllll Please!!!!!

2010-02-02T07:07:00.015-05:00

It's TUESDAY!!!!
Here is my post for our Sister Blog - TUESDAY TREATS ~ this is a duplicate post-feel free to come and visit us at our new Gypsy Blog

Welcome to our very new and very shiny blog TUESDAY TREATS!! This blog is a collaboration that Pam and I have created over the last month or two. We hope you like it here (I worked really hard on the blog header and background prettying it up), while Pam was SO VERY BUSY organizing all of you wonderful designers - fine tuning our blog, and getting us some very cool blog buttons!

Our hopes for this blog are to be able to share our knowledge with new and not so new Gypsy owners. Inspire our readers by sharing our creations with one another. We are starting off with tackling the Cricut Cartridge: Tags, Bags, Boxes & More. I was asked to try my hand at page 121.

Needless to say with the camera rolling nothing went right........ enjoy the video's they catch me at my finest hour lol!!!!

I decided for my first post I would be better able to explain my methods and thought process using video. Tuture posts from myself will incorporate both pictures and videos, but today is special....so lots of video!

Here is what I came up with:

Gypsy Design Part 1:

If you cannot see this video click here

Gypsy Design Part 2:

If you cannot see this video click here

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:

If you cannot see this video click here

PART 2:

If you cannot see this video click here

I've decided to add the link for the gypsy file HERE :)

A Sister Blog!! Opening TOMORROW!!! :) :)

2010-02-01T05:42:00.002-05:00

I absolutely had to post about this wonderful new project I've been invited to work on.

TUESDAY TREATS is a new blog that I am a part of that will be sharing and teaching projects using the GYPSY. That's right, free tutorials on how to use your gypsy to complete fun projects.

Right now we have decided to tackle the cartridge Tags, Bags Boxes and More. Each designer who has volunteered by sending us an email has been given a project from a page in the cart booklet. So not only are you learning about your gypsy, you will be exploring a cartridge not many people use.

Please come and visit us for our Grand Opening on Tuesday February 2nd!!

Yours truly will be kicking off our interactive blog with the first project and 2 videos tutorials ~ this is going to be so much fun!!!!

We are SOOOOO fortunate to have had SO MANY TALENTED DESIGNERS contact us to be a part of this awesome new blog!! Thank you so much!!! See you TUESDAY - over at:

Time for Reflection.....

2010-01-26T17:34:00.008-05:00

Well, it's a new year and I was hoping for a fresh new start in the blogging world. Here it is January 26th and I'm feeling the winter blah's.

I can also see my LACK of crafty posts - gasp!!

hmmmmm, I'm tired of my blog look....trying to figure out fun and exciting posts to blog about.....all these ideas ~ floating around in my mind ~ oh I have big dreams.....except.....

Have you ever heard the phrase 'keeping up with the Joneses?' Yeah well, I should be wearing that pin on my coat lol.

It turns out I got caught up with wanting to keep up with all these amazing bloggers....seriously, I know full well that my life does not have room for the time required to have a blog of that 'status'....and yet here I am stressing about a blog.

With everything that is currently going on in the world, it is time for me to take a look in the mirror and reflect on what is truly important. It's OK if I don't post everyday. It's OK if I don't have sponsors, it's OK if I don't get hundreds of comments on my posts. It's also OK for me to spend my free time with my family......(and not shutting myself in my craft room fiendishly working away on projects to post).....

It's time for a change ~ I need my blog to fit my personality and not try to impress everyone.....this ol' blog of mine was originally just a place to post pics of what i made....so I could look back and see how I progressed.

And now I'm feeling a little lost ~ where to begin?

One thing I do know - I love creating, using just about any medium I can get my hands on.....so I think you will see more interesting projects - not all cricut related, but inspiring nonetheless. I will still post tutorials on the projects I make with my Gypsy - I enjoy sharing my knowledge with others...however this blog will not be dedicated to just that (so if you are looking for Gypsy files you will have to go through my posts and get the files there).

Time to get back to basics and creating projects that make my heart happy :)

To those of you who always take the time to pop in from time to time (and leave me supporting and kinds words) - thank you and it would be great if you stick around this year to see what I've got rolling around in my head. (but I'm not going to stress about that lol!) :) :)

THANK YOU SASSYLADY!!

2010-01-19T13:40:00.005-05:00

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THINKING OF ME :)

Check out Sassy Lady's awesome scrapbook layouts at: She's a Sassy Lady

Crafty Gift Saturday!!

2010-01-16T02:00:00.005-05:00

Oh how fun today is!!! Crafty Gift Saturday :) As much as I love using my Cricut to make cards, I LOVE altering items and doing things a little differently :) Todays project is no exception ~ we get our hands a little sticky with this one!!

I decided I wanted to dress up a bottle of wine to give to a girlfriend for Valentines Day ~ but I didn't want to just plop it in a wine bag this time - I wanted to change things up a bit. So I decided to literally gift wrap the bottle LOL!

I got out some hemp twine (you can buy it at Walmart for 5.97 cdn so it would be cheaper in the U.S.), Wacky Tacky Tape, my Mod Podge ( I grabbed the gloss and the glitter kind) a foam brush and a nice ribbon. I also chose a wine bottle that had a beautiful silouhette.I started at the bottom of the bottle and using my Wacky Tacky Tape (I used this a lot this week LOL!!) I glued my starting point down and started to wrap around the base of the bottle. My original plan was to wrap the entire bottle and then cover it in the Podge....but as I was wrapping, the twine wasn't sitting flat on top of each other and I was getting holes showing the green bottle underneath - yuck. So I took the Wacky Tape and ran it down the length of the bottle 5 times, then as I wrapped around the bottle the twine had something to keep it in place.I wanted to break up the twine a bit on the bottle so I added ribbon near the bottom...yep laid down some wacky tape first to hold it in place and wrapped the ribbon around. Then I just started wrapping again above the ribbon, working your way all the way up the neck and I added another piece of ribbon at the top.Then I decided I wanted to add more bling and attached some really cool ribbon I bought at wallmart in the fabric department (the lady just cuts it off the spool).Once I had it all wrapped I wanted to seal it to make sure the twine would not move, and to seal the bottom of the bottle so it wouldn't start unravelling there. I chose to use the Glitter Mod Podge (big surprise LOL!!) to dress it up but the regular gloss would have been just as nice.I'm not sure if you can see the glitter, but it's there and it's really pretty - as you turn it the light catches the glitter and it shimmers :)Next I wanted to hang all sorts of Valentine themed cuts off the bottle. Most of these aren't even tags - you can just cut out any image from whichever cartridge you like - STORYBOOK has some great scalloped cuts, Lyrical Letters, Home Decor, Home Accents - OH! Hello Kitty would be cute too! So just select whatever cuts you prefer and keep them under 3". To attach ribbon you could punch a hole and thread it through - really easy :) I think it's the ribbon and the layering of all the tags that makes it look so festive. How I did my cuts was to put all my images on 1 page on my Gypsy - Don't forget I'm using Gypsy Wanderings and Wild Card as my only 2 cartridges this week (and Gypsy Wanderings ONLY works on my Gypsy). I welded a few circles to some images to make rings to loop my ribbon through. I placed all my paper on my sheet and only had to cut 1 time. Once I cut out all my images I put them together and dressed them up a bit.
I also got out some craft wire and threaded beads onto it, wrapped the edges closed and shaped it into a heart.
I plan on making some of these wrapped bottles for myself and sticking a tapered candle into the top. How cool would that look with wax dripping down it like they have in those little cafe's in Paris? (without the v-day tags of course lol). You could bring these outside in the summer and place them around your patio....the uses for these could be endless :) I hope you had fun with my crafty gift Saturday!

I have included the G file for the tags on my blog, as well as every project this week - just go to DESIGN~CREATE~INSPIRE.

Sadly......today is my last day as Miss January on Holidays with the Cricut..... I am so glum! It was unbelievable to spend an entire week with such a wonderful group of people. Each and every one of you who took the time to comment on my projects ~ THANK YOU. I mean that from the bottom of my heart, I have read every single one. For someone who is shy, sharing my work was very nerve wracking....but everyone's supportive and kind comments kept encouraging me everyday!

Thank you so much Joy, Melanie and Tammy ~ to be able to post on your blog all week has been such an honour ~ you ladies have a lot of work on your shoulders and I now fully grasp just how much you all put into this WONDERFUL BLOG!

You girls are fantastic - your readers/followers are amazing and I had so much fun - I hope I made you all proud as Miss January, take care and big hugs to you all from Canada :)

Holidays with the Cricut - Fancy Card Friday!!

2010-01-15T02:00:00.003-05:00

Happy Fancy Card Friday Everyone!!! I think this has to be my favourite day!!! I had so much fun designing this card and really went all out - I included so many fun ideas on this card :) The inspiration for this card came from a song that was on the radio while I was in my craft room. Any time I look at this card now, that song immediately comes to mind :) I have had this song in my head far too long LOL!!! I went with Fancy paper, fancy welding and fancy embellishments, what a fun card to make. Let me explain how to do it......

This card is fancy and has many details.....for those of you who are interested in making something similar I have included detailed instructions. Those of you who would just rather look at the eye candy.....I took lots of pictures ;)

Start with a fancy piece of cardstock cut so it will be a 6x6 square when folded over. Next get out your paper trimmer and cut out a smaller piece of silver paper to use as your card liner for the inside.

On my Gypsy I started with a triangle from Gypsy Wanderings and sized it to 3.94W x 1.98H. Next I selected a heart from GW and sized that to 0.51W x 0.49H, I copied this heart for a total of 10 little hearts and placed them around the right side of the triangle. This will leave room for me to fold the left corner to the top point of the triangle.Once I had the hearts placed around the triangle I grouped everything together and welded it. I then copied the triangle 7 more times. I placed my images on the mat, placed my paper to match and cut.You could definitely use double sided paper for this, but the other side of my red glitter paper was pink and it didn't go with my black and white colour scheme. So I cut out plain white triangles so I could stamp hearts on them. This way when the corner is folded over you will see the cute little stamping instead of plain white.Glue the white cutouts to the back of the red glitter paper. Once you have them glued together take your left corner (the one without the hearts welded to it) and fold it to touch the top point of your triangle. Once you have your tips lined up, use a cropadile or hole punch to punch thru all the cardstock. Repeat for the other three triangles.
Once you have folded these over take a brad and feed it through all of the holes. This will hold the pinwheels together and keep your folds from coming undone :)

Next I needed some buttons to cover up my very small brad. It just wasn't proportionate to the size of the pinwheel. I didn't want to cut out a circle to cover it either. The problem was: I didn't have any red, black or silver buttons! Actually all I have are a big bag of white ones I bought from Walmart. No problem......I made my own custom colours :) Can you keep a secret? I'll show you how (if you don't know this trick already).
Grab your versamark pad that you keep for 'grubby' stamping (or just one that is dirty). Take the front of your button and squish is down really well.Take a pair of wire wrappers for jewellery (can be found at the dollar store) or a pair of tweezers and using the holes of the button pick it up and dip it in the embossing powder.
Turn your embossing tool on and while holding the button with your pliers melt the powder. Once it has melted you can immediately put it back into the powder for another coat. Be very careful when you remove the button it will be HOT and pliable. And here it is all nice and shiny....and a pic of the back so you know I didn't sub it with a 'store bought model' lol!
I also needed a silver button...what's a girl to do? Make one :). Then I just grabbed some embroidery floss and fed it through the button holes and tied a bow. Set this aside as we will need to make our pinwheel stick.

I took a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 plain white paper and starting at a corner I rolled it up REALLY tight. I glued it shut and cut a corner off to make a point.
I felt like the stick was VERY plain and I didn't want to stamp it. I got out my wacky tack tape which will hold just about anything down. I got out a small tray and dumped a huge amount of black seed beads into it. I wrapped my tape around my stick in a spiral, and rolled the stick in the beads. I used my fingers to fill in some holes and then got out my glossy accents and coated the beads in it. (Similar to the ZIP dry glue method for the pearls from yesterday).I let this stick dry over night and laid another strip of wacky tape onto the card, removed the backing and placed my stick on the strip.
Next I was ready to place my pinwheel over top of the stick. So I got out my large pop dots and attached one to the back of my pinwheel, and one to the back of my buttons and placed it on my card.
Once I had my pinwheel in place all I needed to do was cut out my letters. I used the font from Wild Card, which I had welded together slightly to make it easier to remove and glue down. To make them stand out more on the front of the card I added pop dots to the back and accented each word with a little heart. Adhere your message on the inside and feel free to use as many little hearts as you like :)

Oh you guys are just so awesome to have made it through all that :) Now just sit back, relax and enjoy the pics :) Feel free to zoom in for a closer look ~ just click on the image :)

Well folks....only one more day left :(

I hope you come back tomorrow for CRAFTY GIFT SATURDAY!!! This is another project that can be made by both CRICUT and GYPSY users :) :)

My very first PAPER Scrapbook page ever!!

2010-01-14T02:00:00.003-05:00

The theme for all of my projects this week is Valentines Day (with the exception of Wild Card Wednesday). This layout was inspired by those large heart boxes of chocolate with the ribbon and all those ruffles around the edges with a big red bow on top.

I can't believe that I haven't completed a paper scrapbook page in the six+ years I have been playing with paper!! It's almost shameful if you knew how many pictures I have to scrap!! I'll never tell....... :) I learned how to Digital Scrapbook this summer using Photoshop and it's helped me a great deal to get some layouts done. I decided for this layout I would include a tiny bit of digi-ness on it (just a little!).

What could be a better picture to scrap for Valentines day than that of of my daughter blowing smoochies to me?? I opened up her photo in Photoshop and using a heart brush I stamped the vine hearts all around her photo. I printed this onto 8 1/2 x 11 white cardstock and set to work on my layout.
I chose a rich chocolate glitter embossed 12x12 paper from My Minds Eye for the base of my LO. I grabbed some satin pink ribbon and 'wrapped' my page. I don't have a sewing machine so I used adhesive instead. I made sure to anchor the base of the ribbon and then I would glue in between the folds to make it look like a ruffle. Who needs a sewing machine?? :)
Next using my gypsy I selected the Scalloped Heart Frame from Gypsy Wanderings and sized it to: 10.25W x 10.81H, and cut it on pink glitter paper (of course!!).

Non Gypsy users could select a similar heart from any of these cartridges: Accent Essentials, Ashlyns Alphabet, Graphically Speaking, Hanna Montanna, Lyrical Letters, Paper Pups, Simply Sweet, Tie the Knot, Wild Card and Zooballoo. Just make sure when you select your image on your cricut you choose the FIT TO PAGE OPTION for it to fill as much of the page as you can.

After the heart was cut out I placed it over the photo of my daughter and traced around it with pencil, and cut it out with a pair of scissors. Set this aside as you are going to make your journaling tags next.

I used the tag from GW as well as the tag frame for this project. (You can see them in the image above). The tag and matching frame is sized at 1.37"W x 2.28"H. I selected the tag and tag frame 10 times. I cut the tags on pink bazzill cardstock, the frames were cut using grey cardstock from SEI. Once cut out you can glue the frame to the base and set your 10 tags aside for now.

Next you can use use any tag pocket from any cart I know there are some on Tags bags boxes and more, also Fabulous finds...and for some reason I'm having trouble thinking of more. Or, you could simply make your own by cutting a rectangle to fit the width of your tag, fold it in half and glue the sides (that's what I did). In todays Gypsy file I have included the tag from TTBM sized to fit, so you don't have to go hunting for it :) Once you have your tag pockets assembled slide your tags inside.

Take your scalloped heart and place it face down so the back of it is facing you. Take your tags and arrange them how you like around your heart. Be sure to mark with pencil so you know where you should glue your pockets down. Get out your pop dots and place as many as needed around the edge of your heart (be sure not to put one where your tags are going to be placed). Be sure to add pop dots to the center of the heart as well.
Next I got out co-ordinating ribbons and tied them around each tag. I also used some fishing line and threaded a single pearl onto the tag for as well.
Speaking of pearls....how about the inside of that heart?? I just love it. I got out my trusty Wacky Tacky Tape and taped along the outline of the heart, close to the inside edge but not over lapping it. I took my strand of pearls and -LEAVING THEM ON THE STRING I arranged them around the inside of the heart. The Wacky Tape will hold your pearls in place while you go around the base of them with your zip dry glue and fill in all the gaps. Snip the string off the end of the pearls and pull it out (after glue is dry). These pearls do not budge, no wiggling....this method really stuck them down :)

I made sure to include lots of tags for journaling on my layout as I tend to write a lot. I also like the interactive aspect to this page by doing the tags this way :)

Well folks- my first layout....out there for you to see......To be honest this project got away from me and now I'm going to have to find a 12 x 12 shadow box for this little piece of art...it's way too thick for a page protector LOL!!!
I hope I haven't scared you all off with this one ~ tomorrow is Fancy Card Friday and boy did I get Fancy!! I have several new techniques I can't wait to share with you!!

Wild Card Wednesday- Let's Shake things up!!

2010-01-13T02:00:00.026-05:00

Hello everyone!! Welcome to Wild Card Wednesday - this is the day that I get to make any style of card I choose. I decided to go with a GET WELL SOON theme and I also included a fun little shaker embellishment on the front of the card :) I LOVE cards that do things, make noise or feel great in your hands....I tried to do all three with this one.

As I am using Gypsy Wanderings and Wild Card cartridges all week this project again will involve my gypsy- tomorrow's project could be done without using a gypsy or DS. I also used ProvoCraft's 12x24 paper in todays project simply due to the way I designed it.

This is what my gypsy screen looked like with all of my images placed on my mat ready for cutting page 1, page 2 has the base of the card and the sentiment for the inside of the card. You can only cut 1 page at a time, when page 1 is done, simply touch on the number 1 and it will change to page 2:

This is how I laid out my paper to cut for page 1:

Page 2 paper layout:

For the base of the card I chose a tag from Gypsy Wanderings and added it to my mat. Then sized it to 4.75W x 6.25H. Next you will select the Marquis shape on Gypsy Wanderings and size it to .55W x 3.99H. These images can be found here on the gypsy: .

Now move your Marquis shape and place it over the hole on your tag as I've done in this picture:

After you have placed your images, you will group the marquis shape and tag. Once they are grouped press copy 2 times for a total of 3 tags. Select 1 tag and using the FLIP button flip this tag Horizontally. Next align the 2 tags and overlap slightly so they look like this:

Group your items and select weld. Everything that will cut is in RED, anything that will NOT cut is in GRAY:

When you cut out your images you will score down the spine and fold it in half:

At this point I chose to run it through my cuttlebug-used the swiss dots folder. Then will apply adhesive to the middle of the spine and press together so your left edge is glued shut (you will be tying a TON of ribbon around this and need it to be sturdy).

I then searched through the all the phrases on Gypsy Wanderings and Wild Card and chose 'Thinking of You' for the front of my card.

Size this to 3.99W x 2.98H. You will also select the shadow for this phrase by touching the shift button and then size the shadow to 4.13W x 3.16H. Once the phrases were cut I decided I needed to ink these too, and a little doodling all over :)

Next a rounded square was selected from Gypsy Wanderings, added to the mat and sized to 4.57W x 3.67H. This square is going to be used as the mat on the inside of the card. Once cut out you can ink the edges to give it a more finished look and apply it to the inside of the card leaving a little more white space on the bottom than the top. Ink all edges with your favourite ink colour.

I found the most adorable little border of flowers on the GW cart and decided I would use these on the inside of the card.
Size the flower border to 4.90W x 1.36H. Once you have added this to your mat you will need to copy it 4 more times for a total of 5 flower borders on your mat. I wanted to be able to have each flower a different colour, so you will be cutting a flower out of each strip to use on the inside of the card:
Once you have 5 each in a different colour you can run them through your cuttlebug for a little more texture and interest. You can also add a rhinestone or two for a little something shiny :)

I had a hard time choosing the sentiment for the inside of the card- Wild card has so many great choices!!! In the end I chose 'Get Better' from Gypsy Wanderings simply because I like the font. I ended up inking the edges on this too. When inking smaller cuts I really like to use a Q-tip. I try to get the Q-tips from the dollar store as they have less fuzz on them, which means less fuzz on your project LOL!!

For the shaker embelly I was looking for an image that had a cutout, AND could take the place of my letter O on the front of the card. I found one on GW sized it to 1.53W x 1.53H.
Once it was on my mat I copied it for a total of 9 cutout flowers on the mat. I went back to the cut out flower in my cart and pushed the shift button to get the solid circle that is used as the backing for this cutout. I copied this circle twice, 1 circle will be for cardstock, the second circle for a transparency sheet.

To assemble your shaker you will line up your cutouts, then glue them on top of each other sandwich style leaving 1 cutout aside and unglued.
Take your solid circle that was cut out of transparency and glue it to the underneath of the flower cutout you left aside. This will be the top for your shaker flower. Find your solid circle cut out of cardstock and glue it to the bottom of your stack of cutout flowers. Now go find some mini beads...glitter, coloured sand....what ever little bits that will fit. Glue your lid on top and shaker flower is all ready shake it's stuff!!

Take your phrase Thinking of you and carefully cut out the O off of the letter f. This will allow you to place your shaker where the letter O was without any patterned paper peeking out beneath

Now go and get that huge stash of ribbon that is in a box somewhere and all tied up in knots and pick out co-ordinating colours, and feel free to mix up the textures- the more the merrier!! Don't be afraid to tie and squish as many pieces of ribbon onto the 'handle' as you can!!!
Grab some more sparkly bits and find fun places to put them....gotta love a little bling ;)

I hope you enjoyed my project for Wild Card Wednesday, be sure to go back to the top of my blog and download the gypsy file :)

Tomorrow is Scrapbook Layout Thursday!!!! Hmmmm, I hope you are all with me on this one.....this should be VERY interesting- this is my very FIRST paper layout I have ever made. And you are all going to get to see it........gulp! :)

Looking forward to tomorrow everyone ~ HAVE A GREAT WEDNESDAY!!!!

Home Decor Tuesday!!

2010-01-12T02:00:00.002-05:00

ROMANTIC CANDLELIGHT - ooh la la!!

And the days keep moving right along!!!

I'm so happy you have joined me for day two on:

In keeping with the Valentine theme while creating this project, I was thinking of ROMANCE- plain and simple :)

I can't think of anything more romantic than having a quiet Valentine dinner with your loved ones, the lights turned down low......warm candle light dancing along the walls, flickering over the table and gently lighting everyones faces.

I didn't want to put just any old pain glass candle holders on my table this year for Valentines day.....so I got out my ETCHING CREAM, a FOAM BRUSH, some VINYL and my oh so handy GYPSY - and I set to work designing my custom Valentine Candle holders.

To get started on this project you will need to determine the WIDTH of your project. To do this you need to measure the CIRCUMFERENCE of the glass using a ribbon wrapped around the base. Wrap it around the base, make a mark or cut it, and lay it flat along a ruler. Now take the same ruler and measure how tall the glass container is as well. Write those dimensions down on a scrap paper so you can refer to those later and make sure you stay within those limits. My overall measurements of my project ended being: 11.40"W x 4.90"H.

Once I had my measurements I took a look on the Wild Card and Gypsy Wanderings carts and pulled out some very lovely, very romantic images.

After arranging everything so all of my items that I wanted to weld were overlapping a little bit, I GROUPED THEM, and then welded them all together so it looks something like this (welded images are in RED, ungrouped and unwelded items are in BLACK):
Page 1:
Page 2:
Once you have your image designed it's time to get your cricut set up to cut vinyl. What seems to be the most popular setting to cut vinyl is: BLADE-3, PRESSURE-MEDIUM, SPEED-MEDIUM. I used the exact same settings as well to cut my vinyl for this project.
After your design has been cut out you will need to WEED OUT all of the pieces you don't want to be on your etching. This can take some time and I recommend using that green little 'dentist looking' tool that comes with the cricut tool kit, but there are tons of household items you could use instead.

And here is the vinyl after removing all excess pieces:

For this project I absolutely had to use TRANSFER TAPE. Just peel it away from it's backing and lay it over the vinyl while it's still on your cutting mat. Rub it with a popsicle stick and lift the transfer tape away. The tape will pick up your vinyl keeping it safe until you are ready to apply it to your surface.

With the transfer tape removed:

After removing the transfer tape you will find there are air bubbles and wrinkles. Use a flat object or your finger nail to smooth them towards the outer edges. Once everything has been firmly smoothed down and there is no vinyl sticking up, you are ready for etching. I love using foam brushes on large surfaces like this, the handles are long and they apply the etching cream much more evenly than using a popsicle stick. I put a very heavy coating on each glass and let it sit for 25 MINUTES. When you are ready to wash it off you can scrape off any of the excess cream and put it right back in the bottle. Wash with soap and water and dry them to a shine :)

I added some votive holders with tealights inside each one. Taking some rose petals that can be bought in the wedding section at M's, I placed these around the votive holders inside the glass. Sprinkle some more rose petals around the table top- heck go ahead and sprinkle some rhinestones for a little sparkle too!

Now your table is ready for that quiet Valentine dinner- get out your favourite dishes, set the table and turn the lights down low..........

And there you have it - My project for Home Decor Tuesday!!!!

Now that I have the first day under my belt, my nerves have subsided and I am feeling much better! I am truly humbled at having over 200 downloads of my Simple Card Monday file yesterday....you all are just so wonderful!! Lets not forget to mention how stunned I was today to see such a large numbers of comments on the Holidays with the Cricut Blog. Taking a look at that after a long day at work today really warmed my heart - thank you so much!!

I also just wanted to mention that all of my files can be changed from 12x12 to 12x24 or vice versa. After you have downloaded the file and have it open on your Gypsy, just push on the silver button on the right. There will be an icon that says: Change Mat Size. Touch that and select your mat. A word of CAUTION: if you are going to a smaller mat you will need to add more pages as there simply won't be enough room for all the images :) So even if you don't have the 12x24 mat you can still download and use these files! :) :)

If you have any questions just leave me a comment and a way to contact you, I will be sure to get back to you :)

Thanks you so much for joining me on another awesome day at Holidays with the Cricut

It's MONDAY!!! It's MONDAY!!

2010-01-11T02:00:00.005-05:00

And that means it's my turn as MISS JANUARY on HOLIDAYS WITH THE CRICUT

I can't believe I'm here doing this today.....I can't start the day off just yet until I say THANK YOU to Joy, Tammy and Melanie for giving me this opportunity to contribute to their totally amazing blog!

When I was asked if I would be interested in doing a guest spot I was thrilled!! When you consider how many other talented artists they have had, I felt very honored to be considered. I was also hesitant as every single one of their past designers oozed talent and their creativity left my mind reeling! So with a very humble heart I accepted and have been busy preparing for this spot all through December and up until last week LOL!!

The theme for this week is Valentines Day, ah love, amore, romance....this is my favorite holiday! So this should explain why all of my projects (except for Wild Card Wednesday) will all have something to do with Valentines Day. My other requirement as guest designer is to only use 2 cartridges- what? only 2? :) just kidding, when I found out I could only use 2 I thought: no problem! I have a gypsy, this awesome little tool lets me manipulate my images any which way I want. As long as I have 'her' this should be the best challenge yet! I decided for the entire week I would be using Gypsy Wanderings and Wild Card!! With these 2 cartridges I think you have every image you could possibly need LOL!!!

I digress.......Let's get on with it shall we? That's what were all really here for right??? all right, all right.....HERE WE GO!!!

Hi everyone!!! Myamagoo here with your SIMPLE CARD MONDAY!

My first task for this week was to create a Simple Card. Sounds easy....but when you are an embellishment nut like I am this proved to be quite the task!

I started with finding a piece of paper that had a ton of glitter on it- and cut it down to 7 5/8"H x 7 1/4" W. This card is going to be hand delivered so I wasn't worried about it fitting a particular envelope size (or postage).

Using my gypsy I selected a square from the Wild Card cart. I sized it to 7.16W x 3.09H- this is going to be the mat on my card. I then welded a series of 9 scalloped ovals from GW (gypsy wanderings), each scallop was sized at 1.22W x 0.93H. I overlapped each scallop to make sure they were all touching. Once they were all lined up I then selected the GROUP button to make sure they were all together and then I selected the Weld Button. Welding these scallops after I have GROUPED them will make those 9 individual pieces into 1 long piece. I chose 2 different styles of hearts for my card-a scallop heart from GW sized at 2.12W x 2.47H. The second was a smooth heart from WC (wild card) sized at 2.44W x 2.17H. Once I had those 3 hearts on my screen I selected the copy button and it duplicated my three hearts leaving me with 6. I shrunk down the 3 'copied' hearts so they would fit inside my larger hearts. I wanted an opening inside each of the hearts. Then I searched for a tag on the Wild Card cart and sized it to 2.40W x 1.04H and made 3 of those. I arranged everything on my mat like this: (I should also mention this picture shows double of everything, I was cutting out 2 cards so I doubled my cuts):

Then I put my paper on my cutt mat Exactly as shown on the Gypsy screen:

Then I just pressed cut and that was it! Look at how close the Gypsy can let you cut between images! I love not wasting paper :)

I adhered the scallops to my rectangle mat, then glued that onto my glitter card stock. I removed the hearts off the mat and made sure to save the left over smaller hearts (I saved the hearts from the tags too).

Next was aligning the tags inside the hearts so the tag would show the stamped letters properly. I just laid the tag on the heart, traced around it with a pencil, and then attached pop dots ti give the tag a place to sit- and to adhere to the card. I flipped the tags over and stamped my sentiment for Valentines Day on it: I heart U.

Don't forget the inside!!!

Grab some ribbon and cut it to length- trim any overlapping edges. Grab your six extra small hearts and just glue them down in any way you like :)

PHEW!!! It really is a simple card- I swear!! The instructions seem like a lot but I just wanted to let new users to the Gypsy to be able to understand how I got from designing on my gypsy, to cutting, to assembling.

The good news is: THIS GYPSY FILE IS AVAILABLE ON MY BLOG FOR DOWNLOAD!! That's right- you don't have to worry about ANY of the measurements, just go to the top where I keep my files and download away :) My gift from me to all of you for reading through all of this LOL!!!! DS users if you would like this file you will need to do the conversion to .cut first :)

Can't wait to see you all tomorrow!!! It's Home Decor Tuesday!!!! ooooh la la!!!

Tomorrow is the Big Day!!!

2010-01-10T09:19:00.005-05:00

Wow, is Monday here already? Time certainly flies by :)

I can't believe how nervous I am!! For those of you who are new to my blog..... tomorrow will be my very first day as a guest designer over at

Joy, Melanie and Tammy have handed the reigns over to me for the entire week!! Can you believe it!? A different project every day, using the cricut in some way or another on my projects. I had a lot of fun trying to come up with ideas for this week- I sure hope you all like them! LOL!!

I can't wait to see you all over there this week~this should be fun!!!!

See you tomorrow......Bright and Early! :)

We Interrupt this Regularly scheduled program....

2009-12-27T23:44:00.002-05:00

Hi eveyone!!

With the holidays in full swing and me and my family on the road to visit my mom (some 9 hours away)....I just wanted to do a post to let you all know I will be on hiatus for a little bit :)

Not to worry though.......paper has been cut, glitter has been thrown everywhere......buttons have been found stuck to my socks.....embellies can be found on the floor taking my carpet from blah to PRETTY!! LOL!! This is all in preparation for my guest spot on HOLIDAYS WITH THE CRICUT. I cannot WAIT to show you all of the fun projects I've designed on my gypsy to share!!!

I am getting really excited for this....and at the same time my stomach is churning as I'VE NEVER DONE A VIDEO BEFORE....I am a very shy person and found comfort in the anonymity of having a blog where the choice of communication is text-not video :)

I keep reminding myself of how sweet you all are and I know you won't laugh or make fun of my video~ it's more my voice that I'm sure you are all going to find very 'young sounding'. A funny story for you all: Each and every time a telemarketer calls and I answer the phone, they ask: is your mother home? This is usually when I hang up on them LOL!!!

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest...I feel much better getting that out :)

I also would like to take this moment to wish you all a safe, happy and healthy new year!!!! See you all in the New Year!!! :) :)

Ornament Boxes finished!!! And they look great! :)

2009-12-21T17:28:00.005-05:00

I posted an ornament I etched the other day (post below) and I had mentioned I was going to be packaging these in boxes.

Well....here they are!!! These are my FANCY BOX Gypsy file boxes...all dressed up for Christmas!!! Aren't they pretty and festive???

Just a quick post tonight~I have TONS of projects to finish and not NEARLY enough hours in the day!!! Thanks for stopping by to visit HUGS!!!!

Design.Create.Inspire

Another one For Grandma Suzie

For Grandma Suzie

a few smilies for you :)

A new addition to my cricut family...

Hmmmmmmmm....

Guest Designer over at SASL

Right Brain or left?

Nom, nom, nom

Pardon the language - but this photo is too funny!

A different colour Pallette for me today.

Wishing for Spring

My New Permanent look!

Thank You

Mini Magoo quote of the day:

Short and Sweet Valentine - Blog hop Winner!

Short and Sweet Valentine Blog Hop!!!!

A beautiful day for skiing and bird watching.....

Love the Dollar store and my Crop A Dile!!

More Christmas Stills.......

'CHEW'BACCA

Max doesn't like the Christmas tree.

A fun new Christmas project to try!!

A Nikon D90?? What?!?!

Focal Points...

It's snowing today....

Another Pioneer Woman Action example

Actions in Photoshop...who knew?

"But Mom, what do YOU know about fashion?" *insert innocent looking eyes here*

Mom? "I like Chicken, especially from cows"....

sucked into the digital vortex....and I kinda like it :)

So this is what it's like to be retired?

It's been pretty busy around here....

oooooh- Cricut Imagine !!!

Life Is a Beach....Seriously????!!!!

Feeling a little like Alice In Wonderland???

WOOOO HOOOO!

At the Cottage yesterday.....

'The Classics' - a Birthday Pop Up Card

Getting a new lens for my Camera!!!

Drumroll Please...............

PINK ATG DRAWING CLOSED :)

Pink Rubber Boots....

So I am not the best blogger.....

Max and his ice :) :)

AWESOME SHOPPING DAY!!

MEET MAX

Hi.....I'm still here

Ahhhhhhhh.....Sunday

Creative Team Search Entries.....Wish me luck please!

Out hiking - found a cute little place.....

Another year already? That was too fast!!

poor Chester.....I'm at it again!

Lean on Me.....

APERTURES....what an interesting concept :)

A special day today.....

Lovin' Photoshop today!!!

Meet Chester.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHER B!!!

It's gone to the Birds.........

Ruffles......and a very late shout out to Cher B!!!

Can you help me?

I DID IT!!! 3 column minima left stretch template!!!!

UNDER CONSTRUCTION......

A note to save.....

Being grateful for the little things....

Drumrollllll Please!!!!!

A Sister Blog!! Opening TOMORROW!!! :) :)

Time for Reflection.....

THANK YOU SASSYLADY!!

Crafty Gift Saturday!!

Holidays with the Cricut - Fancy Card Friday!!

My very first PAPER Scrapbook page ever!!

Wild Card Wednesday- Let's Shake things up!!

Home Decor Tuesday!!

It's MONDAY!!! It's MONDAY!!

Tomorrow is the Big Day!!!

We Interrupt this Regularly scheduled program....

Ornament Boxes finished!!! And they look great! :)

"But Mom, what do YOU know about fashion?" insert innocent looking eyes here