Christmas Cards, More Anna Griffin

I promised to post more Christmas cards yesterday but it was a rather hectic day so I didn't get around to it.  I hope you enjoy these. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a blessed weekend.  My son & daughter-in-love are coming this weekend.  Can't wait.  God Bless You!!!!!  Peggy

Day 1 - Christmas Cards

A while back I went crazy buying Anna Griffin crafting supplies.  Just ask Donna.  I don't if you saw Anna on QVC on Sept.17th or not but that's when I went a little overboard.  One of the things I purchased was the Holiday Trimmings Card Making Kit.   Click on the name to view it.  There are enough materials in it to make 60 Christmas cards.  I got busy and made almost half of them.  Trying to find time to make the rest.  I thought I would share some of them with you today and some tomorrow.  The pictures don't do them justice.  They are prettier than the pictures.  I hope you enjoy them.

I love these cards but I must make a confession.  I don't feel as creative when I make something from a kit as when I create it from scratch, even though these cards are prettier than anything I would make.  I don't know if that makes any sense or not but that's just me.  

Thanks for dropping by today.  I'll be back tomorrow with some more Christmas cheer.  God Bless You!!!  Peggy

Forgotten Card Sets

While I was looking through my card photos, I found these that I have not posted.  A while back I bought Anna Griffin's Beautiful Bouquets Floral Die-Cuts.  There are 72 floral die-cuts in a package so there are plenty of flowers to decorate your scrapbooking, cards and all papercrafting.  I made my sister and sister-in-law a set of cards for their birthdays.  I didn't want to post them before I gave them their gifts, so these were never posted.  I hope you enjoy them.  

 

I added embossing, ribbon, butterflies, lace and various other items.  My sister and sister-in-law said' "These are too pretty to give away, I'm going to keep them."  LOL  I don't think they will.

Thank you for visiting with us today.  I hope you find something to inspire your creativity. God Bless You!!!!!!!  Peggy

Some GOOD News and Bike-A-Thon Thank You

Did everyone remember to turn their clocks back?  I turned mine back Saturday afternoon so I wouldn't forget.  I wanted to make sure I got to church this morning.  We had a special speaker, Tony Nolan.  Our theme for the weekend was "A Weekend of Hope".  He was a very effective speaker.  We had probably 100 or more people respond to the gospel.  One of them was my grandson, Jacob.  Jacob is rather shy and usually waits for his Mom & Dad to go with him when he is doing something new.  However, when the invitation was given, he left his Dad's side and went to the front on his own.  He will be baptized in 2 weeks.  We are so proud of him.  Thank you, Lord, for being interested in a 12 year old boy.

Our last posting was about Jacob & his friends' Bike-A-Thon for their friend, MacKenzie & Cure Duchenne.  It was held a couple of weekends ago.  There was $5003 raised to help with finding a cure for Duchenne.  I hope they find a cure soon.  

Thank you if you contributed.  For those that we have an address, I created a thank you card to send.

I downloaded a bike card from Silhouette, found the Cure Duchenne logo and added it to the front after editing it in Photoshop Elements.  I added a red liner to the inside and generated the thank you message for the inside.  

Thank you for visiting with us today.  May God Bless Your Day!!!  Peggy.

Television Interview of Jacob & His Friends.

In my last post, I told you about Jacob and his friends plans to have a bike-a-thon to raise funds and awareness to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a disease their friend MacKenzie Crawford suffers from.  Duchenne is a rare deteriorating muscle disease.  Chattanooga TV station WRBC, an NBC affiliate, interviewed the boys at school Tuesday.  I think you can appreciate how proud Donna and I are of these guys.  Here is the link to their interview that aired tonight.  

Video 

If anyone would like to donate, you can do so online here.  All the donations aren't listed here.  Total donations so far are $2100.  Hopefully, there will be more donations at the bike-a-thon, this Saturday @ 11:00am.  Your prayers will be appreciated.  

God Bless You All!!!!  Peggy

One Proud Grandmother

My heart swells with gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the love & tender hearts of my grandson, Jacob, and his buddies from the neighborhood.  One of their friends, McKenzie Crawford, has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.  Duchenne effects boys, usually before the age of 5, and they usually don’t live beyond their 20’s.  McKenzie is 13. 

One day he was at Jacob’s house playing in their family room which is upstairs.  When he got ready to go home, his legs collapsed and he fell down the stairs.  He burst his lip and fractured his arm.  He has been falling more lately.  After McKenzie got home and Jacob had settled down (needless to say this upset the whole family) he told his Mom he wanted to do something to help them find a cure for McKenzie’s illness.  He was ready to go right then and sit out in front of Wal-Mart and ask for donations.  Donna is a great organizer of events so they put their heads together and came up with a bike-a-thon.  It will take place in their neighborhood around McKenzie’s house on October 19th.  All of Jacob’s and McKenzie’s buddies loved the idea.  They’re all busy trying to make everyone aware.  I don’t know what all they have planned but I’m sure McKenzie will see how much he is loved.

Donna contacted CureDuchenne and they sent the boys hats & tee shirts to wear for the ride.  They have set up a website for McKenzie so people can donate to CureDuchenne.  The boys can look at it & see who has donated.  If you can donate, the link is http://support.cureduchenne.org/site/TR?pg=fund&fr_id=1040&pxfid=1750 .  This link will introduce you to McKenzie.  It is for a worthy cause.

I just want to say again how proud I am of these boys for showing that kids these days still show concern for someone other than themselves.  They want so much to bring awareness to this crippling & debilitating disease.  

Here is a picture of (from left to right) Jacob, Ian, McKenzie & Truman.

 

Thank you for allowing me to tell you about this great group of kids.  If you can donate, you will be helping a worthy cause.  God Bless You!!!  Peggy

7th Grade Language Arts Project - Cricut Expression, My World, George, Zooballoo, Artbooking, Stand And Salute

Hi Everyone - Has anyone out there had to help with a 7th Grade Language Arts project lately??  Well, let me be the first to say - my son and I could not be more happy that we have a Cricut Expression in the house!!

Jacob's assignment was to read the book, "The Wave!"  Then he had to cover a cereal box and tell the story of the book on the box.  The front had to have a scene with the title of the book, author, and person making the report.  The back of the box had to have a summary of the book and another picture of something in the book.  

This is where the Cricut Expression comes into play.  For the front of the box, we kinda re-created the front of the book:

Sunburst - Artbooking
The Wave Circle - George
Soldiers - Stand and Salute

Jacob also had to place six items inside the box that tell the story of the book. 

The back of the box tells the summary of the book:

School - My World
Grass - Zooballoo

Jacob hasn't received his grade yet but hopefully he'll make an A.  Thanks to Cricut!!

Thanks so much for stopping by today - we appreciate your visits and your comments.  Until another day, God Bless You!  Donna

Flower And Butterfly Card

I've been busy getting ready to make another trip to SC.  My brother who lives in Texas is coming through Anderson and my siblings & I are getting together.  We always have a good time.  I think Max knows we're going somewhere.  He gets excited when I get the suitcase out.  He's such a good traveling companion.  He didn't like the bath I gave him this afternoon though.  LOL

My project today is a design by Daniela Angelova from the Silhouette Online Store.  Here is a link to it. 

I cut it from a printed sheet of cardstock.  Then cut and layered the flower and the butterfly.  I cut the corner off of a square doily, added it to the solid side of the card and tied a ribbon the color of the flower around it.  I placed a flower directly behind this one to decorate the inside.  I really like the way this card turned out.

Thank you for your continued support.  I hope you'll come back again soon.  God Bless You!!!!! Peggy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BIG BROTHER BRIAN!! Silhouette Cameo

Hi Everyone - well you guessed it!!  It's my brother's birthday this week!  He's my older brother by three years.  Now my brother is a very smart guy - he's a computer systems analyst otherwise known as a "computer geek!"  Brian has a great sense of humor but when he's in computer mode, you can be talking to him and he'll nod and say yea, uh huh, but he hasn't heard a word you've said.  One time my computer had a virus, so I called him and asked what I needed to do.  He starts telling me what to do in all these big words that I didn't understand.  So after he was finished, I told him, "now say that again in lingo that I can understand!"  

So since he's a computer guru, I thought I'd make him a card shaped like what??  You guessed it if you said, a COMPUTER!!!  I downloaded this file from the Silhouette Library (now I know this is an older type computer but it's all I could find).  Anyway, I put the paper on the mat and pressed cut!  Again, voila - a la card!!!

I hope Brian will like my card as much as I do.  Thank so much for stopping by today.  We appreciate your visits and comments!!  Until another day, God Bless You!!  Donna

100 Days of Tombow

I am so excited to have the opportunity to participate in the "100 Days of Tombow" program.  For Tombow's centennial year, they are spearheading new avenues of creative growth.  They have been creating innovative products for the past 100 years that help us, the everyday artists, do our best work.  

For each participant, Tombow will donate $100 of  product to the Council for Arts Education, a national nonprofit dedicated to promoting and supporting art education and quality art programs nationwide.  Their goal is raise $10,000 worth of product for this dynamic cause that shapes the future crafters and artists of America.  Contact Barbara Pritchett (barbara@eosmarketing.com) for your products to be a participant.  

I will show you the products they sent me later but first I want to show you my project I created.

These are the products Tombow sent me.

Volume 8 - Very Pale Tone - Irojiten Color Pencils
A Set of Water Based Markers
A Tombow Stamp Runner - I will be buying more of this adhesive runner.  It is the best I have used.

Card Recipe - 
Card Base, Label & Scroll are from Cricut Cartridge Creative Cards cut at 5.5 in.  This cartridge makes it easy to make a card.  I did not use all the elements with this card, only part of them.
Image is from Scrapbook Society.com.
I colored the image with the colored pencils and used some of the markers to highlight the leaves & hair.  I love how it looked when complete.
I inked the edges of all the elements with Anna Griffin Blue Ink.

Here is a close up of the image.

Please contact Barbara and tell her you want to participate in their "100 Days of Tombow" program.  They are so nice over there.  I hope you will join us again soon for some more inspiration.  God Bless You!!!!  Peggy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHRISTOPHER!! - Silhouette Cameo

Hi Everyone - have you ever heard the expression - "Great minds work on the same channel?"  Well, my mom's brain and my brain must be working on the same channel.  You'll see what I'm talking about when you see the card that I made for my nephew, Christopher, for his birthday.  

Mom and I didn't talk about how we were going to make our cards, so the fact that the cards came out so similar is kinda funny!!   For my card, I used a Silhouette Cameo card kit.  I chose a Silhouette background file that contained guitars and sized it to fit the front of my card.  The sentiment was generated with Word.  

Here's the card:

If you will look at Mom's post from yesterday, you will see just how similar the cards are - oohhhh so funny!!!  Thank you so much for stopping by today - we appreciate your visits and your comments!!  Until another day, God Bless You!! Donna

Happy Birthday, Christopher!!

Yesterday was my oldest grandson's 29th birthday.  We "skyped" on my birthday and he told me he was going to be 29 forever.  So that gave me an idea for his card.

 

Card Recipe:

Card base, label and 29 Forever - cut files from the Silhouetted Online Store.

Guitar - picture downloaded from the internet, opened in Silhouette Studio software, sized and printed.

Background paper is DCWV- I can't remember the name of it.  I use it a lot for masculine cards.

This is the inside of the card:

 

Thank you for stopping by today.  Please come back tomorrow.  Donna will post her card for Chris's Birthday.  You will be surprised how similar our cards are.  We didn't craft together nor did we discuss what we were making.  God Bless You!!!!  Peggy

 

Fancy Square Frame Card

I want to share 3 cards with you today.  They are all made with the same cut file but just a little bit different.  This Cameo cut file is called Card Fancy Square Frame.  You can find it here.  First I will show you two that are alike except different flowers.

The flowers are from Anna Griffin Beautiful Bouquets Floral Die Cuts.  They can be found here.  There are 72 layered floral die cuts in this package and they are exquisite.  I cut the card exactly as it is.
This next card is my favorite.

I cut the card out of white cardstock (80 lb.).  Actually I cut the card out of blue glitter paper first.  It was too flimsy so I took the front and layered it onto the white.  I cut the inside label and embossed it with a Anna Griffin Cuttlebug Embossing Folder.  I lightly colored the embossed image with Promarkders.  I love how it turned out.  

Here is a close up of the colored, embosssed image.

The insides of the cards:  These cards can be used with whatever message you want to convey.

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you found some inspiration.  Like Donna said, our Cricut machines are getting jealous but you know you have to play with a new machine to get the feel of it.  We are still going to display Cricut cards so don't leave us.  We appreciate your visits and comments.  God Bless You!!!  Peggy

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TERRIE!! - Silhouette Cameo

Hi Everyone - yes we had another birthday in our family again this weekend!  Saturday was my sister-in-law's birthday - she turned 50!!  Now let me say that my brother did REALLY good for himself when he married Terrie!!  She is just as beautiful today as the day he married her 32 years ago and she is beautiful from the inside out!!  And YES, they did marry young! 

Here's the card:

So, again, I went to my faithful Silhouette library and found an image that I wanted to use.  I found this image but it didn't have a card base with it so I decided to make one.  I took the scalloped background and merged two of them together to form the card.  Then I cut the green background to cover the front of the card and then simply cut out the pink HAPPY BIRTHDAY and glued it to the front - VOILA!!  A LA CARD!!!

I'm going to have to make something soon with my Cricut because it's getting jealous of the Silhouette and my creative brain is turning to mush!  When I use the Silhouette, I don't have to think about how I'm going to put the card together - That can be good and that can be bad! 

Well, thanks for stopping by today - we so appreciate your visits and your comments!  Until another day - God Bless You!  Donna

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!!!

Hi Everyone - That's right - today is Mom's birthday!!!!!  So please send her a comment wishing her a very Happy Birthday to the bestest Mom in the whole world.  My mom is not just my mom but she's also my best friend!  We have so much fun together crafting and shopping!!  I'm really good at spending Mom's money - when we go shopping, she always spends more money than I do!!  Mom is also the best Mamaw in the world to Jacob and Buttons.  She watches my little dog, Buttons, every day while I'm at work.  We say that Buttons and Max are in love - HAAA!!

Well, as you know from previous posts, our family has a LOTTTT of September birthdays so last Sunday, I worked hard and made four cards.  The most cards I've made in a LONNNNGGG time.  Well, the card that was the simplest to make was my favorite.  So I decided to give that card to Mom.  

All I did was cut the bottom corner off a printed piece of cardstock.  I then used some scraps for the borders and punched them with a Martha Stewart punch.  I then tied a bow around one of the borders.  See I told you it was simple!!  BUT OH SO CUTE!!!!  I wrote the sentiment on the inside and we all signed it.  I think Mom'll really like it because we both have a thing about owls these days.

Well, thanks for stopping by today and I hope you'll join me in wishing Mom a Happy Birthday on her special day.  Until another day, God Bless You!!  Donna

A CARD FOR MY SPECIAL FRIEND, SHERRY - Silhouette Cameo

Hi Everyone - how many of you have a very special friend in your life?  

I am very fortunate that I have my friend, Sherry!  She was the very first friend I made when I moved to Georgia 23 years ago.  Sherry is the type of friend that is always there whenever I need her.  She has always been willing to do anything for me and I would do anything for her.  Another thing, my son would probably live with her if I would let him.   When he goes to her house, he doesn't want to come home. 

Another funny thing, our son's birthdays are three years and two days apart. When Jacob was younger, Sherry and I would talk about the things that Jacob was doing - well, Sherry would tell me that Braden had done the same thing three years earlier.

Well, I wanted to send Sherry a card to show her in a small way how much I appreciate her friendship.  So where did I go to find a card I liked - you guessed it - Silhouette Online Store.  As I said the other day, I really like the Chevron pattern that is popular right now.  

I chose this card kit file for 99 cents because it had the Chevron pattern on the edge.  Then I found another cut file for a 3D flower.  I used a brad for the center of the flower.  The sentiment was generated in Word - it says - "Everyone....needs a friend like you!"

Hopefully, this card will brighten Sherry's day!  Thank you for stopping by - Mom and I appreciate your visits and your comments.  Until another day, God Bless You!  Donna

Masculine Birthday Card

The card I'm sharing with you today is one I found on Pinterest.  I have to make some masculine birthday cards this month for our marathon birthday month.  Like a lot of you, I'm better at making cards with flowers, bling and ribbon; not masculine cards.  So I looked on Pinterest for some inspiration.  This is my version of the card.

Card Recipe:
5.25 X6.5" card base
Background labels & the birthday label are cut files I found at http://www.silhouetteonlinestore.com.  The tie cut file is from Bird's Cards.  Bird is so generous with her cut files.  She gives them away for free in several different formats.  Studio files is one of those formats.  She makes some pretty amazing things.  Click on her name to visit her blog.
Brown Ink - I inked the edges of all the elements.  I also stamped the sentiments in brown ink.

I hope the recipient of this card will like it.  Here is the inside of it.  For some reason, my pictures don't look as good as the actual project.

Thank you for visiting with us again today.  I hope to see you back soon.  We love your comments.  God Bless You!!!  Peggy

ENJOY THE RIDE - Silhouette Cameo

Hi Everyone!  Surprise, Surprise, Surprise - I made a card!!  HAAAA!!!  It's been a LONNNGGGG time since I've been in my Happy Space and I actually made this card at my Mom's house on Sunday.  

I made this card as a Thank You card for my brother and sister-in-law.  A few weeks ago, my mom took Jacob to their "retirement home" in Virginia for a visit.  My brother and his wife love to ride bicycles and they built their house near the New River Trail in Galax, Virginia.  Now, Jacob had never learned to ride his bicycle and the reason for that was my husband let him go over the handle bars while trying to teach him so he wouldn't trust us to teach him after that.  So my brother and his wife told him that they would teach him.

So when Mom and Jacob got to Virginia, Brian took Jacob to Walmart and bought him a new bicycle.  Keep in mind that Jacob had a brand new bicycle in the garage that had been there for several years that he wouldn't touch!  Anyway, so Brian and Terrie worked with Jacob the next morning, and he was riding within an hour.  He caught on very fast and has been riding VERY FAST ever since.  Jacob wants to know when he can go back to Brian and Terrie's because he had so much fun.  Here he is when they got him to stop long enough to take a picture.

Thus the card - Enjoy The Ride is what Jacob has been doing since that weekend.  He wrote a personal note to them thanking them for all they did for him.

I downloaded the images from the Silhouette Library.  I just love the Chevron pattern that is so popular these days so I cut that image out to cover a 5 x 7 card base then cut the phrase and adhered it to the top.  All in all, I think it turned out really cute.

Well, thanks for stopping by for a visit - Mom and I appreciate your visits and your comments.  Until another day, God Bless You!  Donna

What Have I Been Working On????

At last I can finally show you what I've been working on for the last month.  I made a cookbook.  I had all my recipes crammed in a manilla envelope.  Every time I wanted to use one of them I had to go through the envelope until I found what I was searching for.  Maybe this sounds familiar to you.  LOL

So I decided to gather everything up (I had bought stickers, paper,etc a while back specifically for this project.)  I even had a project box for it, which I moved from SC.  That will tell you how long I've had this idea in my head.  Any way, Donna & I typed up all the recipes in WORD on recipe cards that Donna designed.  We used divided photo protectors to put the recipes in.  I also had some photo album sheets for the bigger recipes.  I decorated each page with some of the stickers and/or paper.  Here are a few pics.  I hope this inspires some of you to organize your recipes.

After I got all my recipes in the book by category.  I was going to design a cover & section dividers but I got on the internet and searched for some already prepared.  Lo and Behold, I came across Pink Polka Dot Creations and she had this set complete.  So I downloaded them for my cookbook.  They were perfect for what I needed.

She even had the binder edge label and the tabs done.

 Here are a couple of my pages and how we decorated them.

 It was difficult getting a good picture since I have everything in page protectors but I think you can get the gist of  it.

Thank you for stopping by today for a visit.  We appreciate your comments.  God Bless You!!!!  Peggy