Macabre Monday Hell Hath No Fury Challenge

On week's Macabre Monday at Haunted Design House the challenge is "Hell Hath No Fury" and we're betting it's a popular one. LOL I, of course, have no experience in this matter, but if I did...

So anyway, I thought it was about time I did a Cricut card, being the Creepy Cricut Cween and all. I already had the sentiment in my mind. so I decided to make a bed shaped card using a bed from Everyday Paper Dolls with Design Studio. The stamp is Baby Cakes by Jill Penney and Daniel Torrente for Stampotique. The sentiment is computer generated, cut with my Nesties.

Fully opened, the card reveals the full intentions of the poor scorned girl. Obviously she's much happier with the thought. Revenge is so sweet. (dig the cute metal knife) The smiling face is that of Karin, another Stampotique stamp by Penney/Torrente. The blood spatter on the computer sentiment is from the Inky Dreams set from Smeared Ink.

Here you can see how both the bottom of the bed and the hand cut pillow open and how the front sentiment, secured with a skully brad, slides to open it. It really was fun to design and I hope you all find the humor in it. Now, if you want to see some hilarious crazy bee-otch projects along this line, check out the rest of the Macabre Minions designs at Haunted Design House. We're dying to see what you come up with.

Cutie Couples from Peggy Loves Vintage

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Peggy has release 3 new sets of Cuties Couples Cut Outs available on the Peggy Loves Vintage Website, Etsy, and Ebay stores. The cut outs are an easy fast way to enjoy Peggy's adorable images and I immediately fell in love with this cute couple from Cutie Couples 3. You remember my dinner party last week? Well, I pulled out all the stops with my best china, crystal and silver, but the bad news was it all required hand washing. We had spent 2 days cleaning and cooking and enjoyed it all immensely, but at 1:00am I was hardly in the the mood to begin washing the mounds of dishes (although waking up to them is infinitely worse). As I was wrapping up leftovers, there was DH washing away. Got to love him! The retro DP is DCWV Nana's kichen stack and the sentiment was computer generated using my Greeting Card Factory Deluxe program.

I used Scalloped Rectangles and Petite Circle Nesties on the front and Mega Classic Ovals and Mega Scalloped Oval Nesties inside. The hearts are a MS punch. I thought it would make a cute Valentine or Anniversary card, or in this case, a Thank You.

Bah! Humbug! Holly or Fairy Challenge and Tiddly Inks Refresh Me

Yea! Bah!Humbug! is back with their first challenge of the year. I know many are totally done with Christmas, but I'm raring to go. The gals are making it easy this week, allowing either holly or fairies for the challenge, but I immediately thought of Holly Bug from Tiddly Inks so I could do both. It is also the first challenge of the new year for Tiddly Inks and we have some changes on the Tiddly Inks Challenge Blog. Our Design Team is divided into an A and B group and being on the B team, my Tiddly Inks card this week did not have to follow the current challenge, but I love the idea of a "refreshing" all white card with the only color being that of the image, so I decided to meet the current Tiddly Inks challenge with this card as well.

I cut Holly Bug and her frame with my Nesties. The background mat is embossed with the Cuttlebug Holly folder. I used white peelies to hide the raw edges and used the MS double scallop border punch on the bottom edges of the card. All I needed then were some adhesive pearls and an organdy bow for embellies. Be sure to check out the fabulous creations by the rest of the Tiddly Inkers and read about the exciting new images, challenges and prizes we have for the new year. And I know at least a few of my friends who vowed to get a jump start on Christmas cards for this next Christmas so now's the time to get going with a little help from Bah!Humbug! Oh, and hey, if you get a chance, take a scroll down to see my Whimsical Wednesdays Guest Designer card. This week's theme is Alice in Wonderland and I'm really proud of it.

Whimsical Wednesdays Alice in Wonderland Challenge

Today is a special day because I'm so honored to be Guest Designer for Whimsical Wednesdays. When Jess contacted me and told me the challenge was Alice in Wonderland how could I say no? You know I love me some Alice! This fun challenge is open to any interpretation of an Alice theme so I hope you're inspired to play along. (I've heard there is a fabulous prize to be had!)

I'm quite the collector of Alice images so it was very difficult to choose. Because it is "Whimsical" Wednesdays, however, I decided you couldn't get more whimsical than the quirky digi stamps from The Octopode Factory. Lily is such an amazing artist that it's hard to believe she's only 17 years old. The stamps are available individually, or as a set, and I've used characters from both the Alice in Wonderland and Alice Elements sets. They are all colored with Copics and a bit of metallic gel pen here and there.

For my Wonderland scene I chose a side step card so I could add the layers and depth I wanted. Here's a LINK to a simple tutorial for this style of card. Choosing papers is always difficult for me, but when I saw the gorgeous flowers on this sheet from Webster's pages, I thought the quirkiness of the images would play off the beautiful, realistic botanicals quite well. The pattern is on the edges and corners of the page so with a bit of fussy cutting I was able to contain this magical world quite easily.

Of course the whole concept of time is central to the Alice theme. My clock here is a digi stamp from Smeared Ink and I've mounted Alice with a brad as if she were one of the hands and she does rotate. I'm afraid these days I feel alot like Alice. Time just seems to get away from me and sets me spinning! (Of course it doesn't help that I'm so easily distracted and the consummate procrastinator! LOL)

The sentiment is a combination of computer generation and what was printed on the Webster's Page. I've used wire to attach the computer generated portion which I printed in olive on more of the blank part of the printed card stock and cut and embossed with my new Nesties Labels Seventeen. I love the thought of "living the life I have imagined" and better still that it's "never too late" to make that happen.

Now to get you even more excited about the challenge I have a couple of "sneak peeks" from the gals who bring you Whimsical Wednesdays. The first is from Jess. Again, I want to thank Jess for this fun and fabulous opportunity. OOOhhh, I recognize that face and it's one of my FAVES! Hurry over to see the completed project HERE and leave her some love.

And from Stephanie I see another peek of gorgeous hair! I'm sure you're excited to see what Steph has in store and you'll find the particulars of the Whimisical Wednesday challenge, Mr. Linky, and the prize info HERE too. Hope all you Alice lovers come and play along!

The Cuttlebug Spot Inspired by a Song

This week at The Cuttlebug Spot we're taking our inspiration from a song. I immediately knew the artist, Eva Cassidy, but as she's my fave, the decision of which song was pretty daunting. Eva has the voice of an angel and unfortunately she's with the angels now, having passed away at a young age from melanoma. She did not sing original songs, but was a genius at arranging the songs of others. Keeping the Cuttlebug in mind, I finally chose "Fields of Gold" which is fitting because it was the first song I ever heard her sing over the radio and I actually went online to the radio program listing to find the artist, it touched me so. I'd never particularly liked Sting's version but Eva's is magical. Her voice takes me away to a special place I hold in my heart. Please have a listen.

I made a shaped card using the frame from Accent Essentials, hiding the inside contours and welding them together. Usually I try to do my Cuttlebug Spot card with only the Cuttlebug, but I noticed on the Bontanicals Lite cart there was a sheaf of grain that I wanted to incorporate, so I used the frame again and welded that shadow of the grain to it. I thought this made a lovely foreground. My fields of gold are embossed with the Bird Call Cuttlebug folder that I fussy cut and popped. (I also cut off the bird) I used the Sizzix Tim Holtz Rays folder for the jealous sky and a Nestie Inverted Scalloped Circle for the sun.

To add a bit of texture to the sheaf I used the small dots from the butterfly cut and emboss combo set just at the tips.

I did quite a bit of popping to get the the amount of depth I wanted and inked everything in warm tones of Distress Ink to help enhance the embossing. The sentiment, of course, are words from the song, computer genterated and cut with Nesties Label One. The inside sentiment is also lyrics from the song that I need not share. You know...

I have no music on my blog but if I did, it would probably all be Eva. I hope you listened while reading about my card, and if you have a chance, find more of her music to enjoy. Now pop on over to The Cuttlebug Spot to see what inspires my fellow teamies. I'm anxious to find out myself. (I usually wait until the new challenge is up to post but I was anxious to share this one. Sorry if I jumped the gun.)

BBTB2 Lyrical Letters Hummingbird Challenge

Yikes, I'm still running WAY behind. We're finally back from break at BBTB2 and this week's Hummingbird Challenge was chosen by our sweet DT Sister Karen. One of the reasons I love BBTB2 challenges is that I often find cuts I never knew existed on the various carts and this was no exception. I looked for flowers for my hummingbird and chose another cartridge I'd never used, the Lite Cart Botanicals.

I chose one of the card cuts and then used Design Studio to elongate the card and weld the hummingbird off the other side so it would fold in to the flower. The light green mat is embossed with the Cuttlebug Bird and Swirls folder, the flower itself, with Swiss Dots. In some ways this looks more like one of my Cuttlebug Spot cards, but the hummingbird had no shadow so it lended itself to a more simple design. However I'm noticing now that the embossing just barely shows up in the pix. What's up with that?

There isn't alot of space for a sentiment with this style of card and I was originally going to do a sympathy card, but I found both the "So Kind" and "Thank You" on the Cuttlebug With Gratitude Cardmaking Combo and they fit so that's what I went with. All that was left were adhesive pearls and a ribbon to complete the embellies. (Big surprise! LOL) Now pop by BBTB2 to see the marvelously creative ways the rest of the team used the hummingbird cut and remember, if you don't have Lyrical Letters, you can use a hummingbird cut from any of the carts.

Macabre Monday Bizarre Birthday Challenge

Eiyiyi! I'm so far behind! Two days of no crafting in preparation for my dinner party knocked me for a loop but for once I was able to relax and enjoy my own party so it was worth it. However, I was late getting my cards done (don't be silly, of course I don't plan ahead) and will be even later at posting them. Hang in there y'all. this week at Haunted Design House the challenge is Bizarre Birthdays. I had the sentiment in my head before I'd even designed the card and had several stamps in mind, but finally chose my Holy City stamps from Smeared Ink. Love the fabby graveyard scenes from Charleston S.C. So "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" dont'cha think? It's an A2 card (rare for me) using my Wonky Squares Nesties and the off cuts from my "Cracked" punch around the page set by MS. The sentiment is computer generated and the cool metal skull brad is by Recollections.

Inside, more tombstones, matted in red with drippy goo punched at the bottom. HeeHee! As Barb said, great for a milestone birthday, no?

Just did a bit of popping and that it. So why did the darn thing take me hours to finish? I'm sooooo ADD! LOL So go see how the Minions are celebrating this week. The cards are really a hoot and I know you'd love to play along. This one's a good one! And don't forget to pop back for my BBTB2 card a little later on. Need some breakfast now, though.

Happy 2nd Birthday Charisma Cardz Challenge

So I've had loads to do to get ready for a dinner party tonight and hadn't planned on crafting at all the past couple of days. It does take me awhile to wake up though, and I popped in on my dear friend and DT sister Julia's Blog yesterday morning and saw the blog hop for Charisma Cardz Challenges and decided to hop along. It was a super hop and at the end I saw that you must complete the current challenge to be eligible for the prizes (and WOW what a list of prizes!) so I thought I'd make a quickie and join in. The challenge is a birthday/celebration card and you get an extra entry if you incorporate the number "2". I checked out my digi stamps and the first one (that was easy to color) was this adorable Pure Innocence by Heather Ellis.

Now I really didn't have much time and I usually spend hours looking for paper but as I was browsing my files I came across the Colored Birthday Background printable stamp from The Cutting Cafe and thought it would be perfect. I did something a little different this time when printing my stamps. I knew I wanted to do a Nestie frame around my image so I measured the rectangle and sized my image accordingly, but instead of printing the image and the background separately, I just plunked it right on the background and printed it as one piece. (That made for a little added pressure on the coloring front, but I thought this image would be hard to mess up and the colors I wanted to use were right there to look at. WooHoo!) The circle sentiment is from the Assorted Celebration Word Circles, also from The Cutting Cafe and I added the epoxy "2 U" and a little ribbon garnish. the border punch at the bottom is the old favorite Threading Water by Fiskars. Happy 2nd birthday Charisma Cardz Challenges. I'm sure I'll be playing along with again.

Dia de Reyes Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Dia de Reyes Blog Hop. If you've come from Madison's Blog you are on the right track. If not, you'll want to hop over to Gaby's Blog to read about this wonderful holiday tradition and find out the details for winning the fabulous prizes she has to offer. I used the Cricut Cartridge Christmas Village for my Reyes Magos card. Because they are meant to be standing figures, I designed the card in Design Studio and used a rectangle from George to cut the figures off where I wanted. To save paper I also positioned the cuts off the mat which in the case of the King leading the camel confused DS enough that I not only had to turn off my Cricut and close the file after cutting it, I also had to close the entire DS program and restart it to continue. Each King was cut twice, and assembled with the gold foil card stock slightly offset to approximate a shadow Fortunately it all worked out in the end.

"We Three Kings" is from the Winter Frolic cartridge which fortunately does have an accompanying shadow. Because the Kings are just silhouettes, I used adhesive gems to bring out some details. The background card stock is from the DCWV Luxury Stack and the Kings themselves are matte metallic from Recollections. The gold border is a peel off.

Each King is popped from his shadow and then popped from the next for dimension. the sentiment is popped as well and adds a bit more drama to a pretty simple card.

The rest are the pictures of my Reyes Magos that spend the Christmas Season on the table in my entryway. In Latin countries the Kings are not added to the Nativity until the evening of January 5th but my dudes always jump the gun 'cause I love them so much! LOL

Now hopefully you have been visiting all the blogs in order and are collecting the magic words to complete the sentence for the prize and don't forget to leave comments along the way.

My word is OUTSIDE.

Now hop along to Martha's Blog and enjoy the wonderful festivities. But if you're lost, Click HERE to find your way. Thanks so much for stopping by and enjoy!

The Cuttlebug Spot Inspired by a Book Challenge

Yea! The Cuttlebug Spot is back and we're full of inspiration, both for our readers AND the Design Team. Each week this month we are asked to be inspired by something and today's inspiration is a book. Of course my mind went immediately to "Alice in Wonderland", but I thought I'd branch out a bit and used some of my new Cuttlebug goodies so I chose "Bambi" instead. (Yes, it was a book before it was a movie.) I actually have 2 new folders that feature a deer but decided that this Sizzix Dearly folder by Basic Grey was the way to go. It's actually a Christmas folder and has some snowflakes, etc. on it so I did some major fussy cutting to extract the deer and swirly foliage from the background. The fabulous frame is the new Cuttlebug Carly Emboss Plus Folder and I've colored the embossed areas with a white gel pen.

The frame is popped for dimension and I added two Nesties Petite Scalloped Oval layers around the opening. There's additional texture with Swiss Dots (a new folder, I actually WORE OUT the old one) behind and the sentiment is a clear stamp from the Oh Deer! Technique Tuesday set, mounted on Nesties Mega Ovals and Scalloped Mega Ovals LG. (Do you believe all of the Ovals they have? VERY confusing!) Final touches were some butterflies punched with an MS punch and the ever present adhesive pearls.

I'm getting somewhat anxious here since I've got lots to do today, so I may have jumped the gun a bit by posting before the new challenge is on The Cuttlebug Spot blog, but be sure to pop by later to check out the fab new creations by the team. I'm also entering this in the Sentimental Sundays Celebrate Friendship (plus sentiment) challenge.

Macabre Monday Nightmarish New Year

We're BAAAck! time for a new Macabre Monday at Haunted Design House. It's a new year and we're exploring all of those well meant but PITA New Year's Resolutions. Mine's pretty self explanatory and uses one of the new Occasions Lil Grumpies Set from Smeared ink (so is the "bottoms up" sentiment). He's (she's?) colored with Copics and metallic gel pens and I've used Rain Dots for the champagne bubbles. "bottoms up" is also part of the Grumpies set which I crossed out with a pen.

The green foil mat is embossed with the Cuttlebug Tiny Bubbles folder (how fitting) and the label cross the bottom is from my new Dymo Caption Maker. Remember those things? They're back! The fabulous "Dreadful resolutions" sentiment is a freebie from Tiddly Inks. You can snag it on Christy's blog or in our Tiddly Inks PCP group HERE. So come on guys, get your creep on, check out the rest of the minions resolutions and play along with Macabre Mondays. And just in case you think I'm getting soft with a pink and green color scheme here, just think of the green as bile and the pink as petechial hemorrhage. (Have a nice day!)

Happy New Year and My Faves From 2010

Vintage Challenge for the Cuttlebug Spot with Peggy Loves Vintage Image
(Just think of this as the New Year's Baby and the first of my faves from 2010)

Here's wishing all of my fabulous friends a healthy, happy 2o11! You have no idea what you mean to me and I thank you so much for your love, inspiration and support.

We're celebrating in Sausalito so I thought I'd schedule a little trip down memory lane and bring you my faves of 2010. I wanted to go month by month, but let's face it, in some months the mojo flowed better than others. LOL There's a little more diversity than last year's faves HERE. I can't always explain why I've chosen what I've chosen but I hope you enjoy. You can click the link if you're at all interested in the original post.

A Child's Year Door Hanger for BBTB2 and Featured Designer for the Chirp Newsletter

for BBTB2

Rick Rack Challenge for BBTB2

Chic for BBTB2

Twinkle Twinkle for Everyday Cricut (with link for free .cut file HERE)

Oh Alice! Mad Watch Challenge

Daddy's Girl for Tiddly Inks

Guest Designer for Tickled Pink Stamps

Happy 60th Hank!


Love Never Dies for BBTB2



Thanks Sew Much for BBTB2



Blue Christmas with Kenny K image.