Merry Christmas....

Hi there blogger friends and followers.  WOW just one short week away from the big day!!!  Are you done with your shopping, wrapping, baking, crafting & etc???  This year has just flown by and I decided not to stress myself out during the last month of the year, I just wanted to enjoy this season where we celebrate the birth of Jesus the only begotten Son of GOD, I mean that is what Christmas is all about after all.  So this year I did not make handmade Christmas cards or write my annual Christmas letter, and I have not yet baked a single cookie, I know shocking right!!!   I did host a Cricut Club open house and the ladies came and crafted or just finished up this years club projects while they enjoyed some fellowship and fun before all the Christmas craziness started.  Today I thought I'd share the 3D ornament I designed for the ladies to make for the November Cricut Club meeting.  It's a little bit Steampunk and a little bit traditional. I am going to be entering it in a couple link ups. 

 I used several Cricut cartridges... Winter Wonderland, Everyday Pop up cards & Elegant edges to name but a few. The paper is from Hobby Lobby, Michael's and JoAnn's. The metal embellishments are from Tim Holtz and Bead Findings. The buttons are from my favorite things. I also used chipboard to give it a thicker rigid base. I used glitter ribbon for the bow from Michael's and a gold leaf pen to finish the edge and for the date on the back. Each of my Cricut Club ladies made 2 so they could keep one and give one away.    If you live in Idaho Falls or in one of the many nearby areas and are interested in joining my Cricut Club you can leave a message here with your contact information or you can message me on Facebook, there is a link button on the right side of my blog. Cricut club starts again in January 2014.

I hope that you enjoyed your visit here in my little corner of the web. Please leave me a comment so I know you stopped by. 


I pray you all have a very Merry Christmas and that your New Year is blessed.

God Bless,
Vickie

Long overdue post of Cricut club calendars

Hi there all my followers.  I know that I promised I'd share my Cricut club perpetual calendars with you many times and I just realized that I have not done that.  My Mom in Law has received it and thinks it great so as she has had time to enjoy it I thought I'd share all the pictures with you all.  Sorry there are so many pictures but as there are 12 months in a year so there are 24 pictures. Just so you know it took the club members 6 months to make these calendars and all the cuts are made using a Cricut with loads of different cartridges.

Whew... that's alot of pictures hope you enjoyed seeing each of the months. The ladies had a great time making this calendar.  When they finished all their pages we bound it with my Zutter bind it all.  Now all they have to do each year is buy a package of vellum and print that years calendar pages and then they are good to go for another year.
Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the web. Please leave me a comment so I know you were here.
God Bless,
Vickie

Here come the Holidays...

WOW it's almost time for the Holidays...Where has the year gone I wonder,  I am having a hard time believing that in less that 1 month Thanksgiving will be here and of course that is the official start of the holidays. Well before any more days slip by I guess I should share some of the cute cards I've been making and another Cricut club project. The first card I made for my darling Granddaughter who moved to South Carolina this past summer and I miss her alot so I try to send her a little card or gift each month. The next 2 cards I made for my wonderful son's one is serving in the USAF and is stationed in Korea and the other is in Law school in Omaha Nebraska. Then there was another birthday card to make so I combined part of both my son's cards.

Then I made my annual fall card and the wreath is what I designed for my October Cricut club project.

 

I hope you are inspired by my creations. Thanks for stopping by. Leave me a comment so I know you were here.  

God Bless,

Vickie

Happy fall y'all...

Hi to all my blogger followers I am back... well I never really left I just had a super slow computer which was dying a super slow painful (for me) death, anyhoo my sweet darling husband took pity on me this week and bought me a new ASUS laptop with windows 8, I was still using Vista I know the dark ages of computer operating systems. This one is so cute it's black with little blue dots and the best part is that we got a great deal on it at Best Buy because it was a floor model and the last one in stock at our store. In addition to a slow computer I have been struggling with some more major pain in my back again. 10 days ago my back surgeon determined that due to my low back fusion I may have developed SI joint dysfunction (SJD) which happens to about 75% of all low back fusion patients and over 50% of that 75% are women... long story a bit shorter... I need an injection to diagnosis it correctly, if the injection gives me pain relief, then I will need another surgery to fix the issue.  My insurance company in their stupidity refuses to pay for the injection but will pay for the surgery.  My surgeon wanting to be absolutely positive it is SJD before surgery wants to do the injection, which I think is good because I don't want to have another surgery and find out that it did not help. As you can probably tell I am a bit frustrated with my insurance company.  We now get to do an appeal letter and hope that it all get's solved quickly so mostly that I can get out of this major pain but also so that it can be done before the end of the year as all my deductable and out of pocket costs have been met for 2013.  I am am praying and have my fingers crossed but your prayers would be greatly appreciated too.
And now before I loss everyone on to the craft part of today's post which is what you are all here for, thanks for listening.  Just over a week ago my Cricut Club met and the project involved heat transfer vinyl bought at expressionsvinyl.com and t-shirts from Walmart here is what they made.

I think they came out great. These were super easy to do, the weeding of the vinyl was the hardest part but even my new members were able to do this project easily.
I hope you enjoyed your visit. Thanks stopping by. Sorry this was such a long post today, hopefully now I will be able to post updates more quickly and frequently so they will be shorter... Leave a comment so I know you stopped by.
God Bless,
Vickie

Summertime...

Hi there blogger friends and followers.  I can't believe it's almost the end of July... I love summer!!!!  I have been able to enjoy some time away with some of my friends, my family (my youngest son is home for a few weeks before he heads off to Law School in Nebraska) and the warm days of summer here in Eastern Idaho. We don't get many of these days, so I have found that I am grateful for each and every one of them. I have been going to Physical Therapy and working a few days each week which is nice. Especially since it's a job that doesn't involve nights, weekends, holidays or being on call anymore. Well enough about me, after all you are here to see something crafty.
Today I have a couple more pages of my Cricut Club's perpetual calendar project to share.  I will be linking at the Pink Cricut "Link up Party" and entering in the Cardz TV "Back to School" challenge.  After I get the project mailed to a very special lady I will share all the pages with you.  As this is a Cricut Club project I used my Cricut for all the cuts but there are too many cartridges to list here.

Hope you enjoy your summer. Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the web.  Leave a comment so I will know you've been by.

God Bless,
Vickie

Working again...

Hi there family, friends and followers. Just wanted to give you all a quick update.  I am back to work after my back surgery.  I found a 3 day a week LPN position.  It allows me time to craft and run my house so I am very excited and I am praying that it will work out.  I have spent the last 2 weeks in training, which will be ongoing because there is a lot to learn but so far it looks promising.  I am now going to Physical Therapy 2 times a week to hopefully get the pain in the back to calm down.  My surgeon believes it is nerve pain caused by my muscles spasming.  Either way it is not hurting to go and I am feeling a little better. 
Since I last updated my blog I won a grab bag giveaway from Northridge Publishing. The grab bag included tons of goodies and a Mini Cricut.  So I now own 3 bugs!!!  I have included a picture of the goodies that I won. Today I am going to share with you all the card I made for my darling sweet husband for Father's Day.  Neither of our sons live near us right now one is in Korea in the USAF and the other is currently living in Las Vegas so it was just the two of us.   I used my Create a Critter 2 cartridge for all the cuts and the paper was found in my stash.  I love easel cards. I will be entering the Exploring Cricut Challenge for this week.  I hope you like the card.  

 Well that's it for now.  Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the web.  Please leave me a comment so I know you where here.

God Bless,
Vickie

Cards, Cards and More Cards...

 Hi there family, friends and followers.  I can't believe that it's been over a month since I last updated my blog.  I have been busy with this month's Cricut Club kit & visiting with family. My precious granddaughter turned 10 earlier this month & I was excited because I was able to go to her party in the Salt Lake City area over Mother's day weekend.  I can now drive again, Yipee!!! However I have been laid off from my job, so  I have been looking for another LPN job but with my current lifting restrictions, due to my recent back surgery, I have not been able to find another job yet.  I have spoken to a disability lawyer and she has informed me that she thinks I would be granted disability due to my age and lifting restrictions. This was a hard decision but I have begun the very long process required to get disability approved. The up-side of not working is that I have tons of time to craft and have gotten caught up on some  projects.  I thought I would share the cards with you. I hope you are inspired and will give the step cards a try they look amazing and they are fairly easy to make. I found the instructions on YouTube.

I used my Paper Lace Cricut cartridge for this card. I sent them to everyone who blessed me after my back surgery. As I had a lot of these to make I was thankful that I could make several at a time on my Cricut.  All the supplies are from my stash.

I used my Nifty Fifties Cricut cartridge for this card, it was for a special boy who loves cars and turned 13 yrs old this year.  I made a pocket on the inside of the card for some $$$. I remember the day he was born, time is just wheezing by...

I have a dear friend who came over and took me out to lunch and craft store shopping while I was recovering from my surgery.  She loves Steampunk stuff and I happened to have this Jolee's sticker set in my stash so I thought I'd use it for this card.  Actually everything is from my stash.

This is my first step card.  The focal piece is a cut from my Elegant Edges Cricut cartridge.The image is stamped and hand colored with colored pencils and OMS. It's a 5 1/2  inch square card so I even made an envelope that matched for it using my Martha Stewart scoring board.  My mother in law loved it!!!

For my second step card  I used my Birthday Bash Cricut cartridge for the dog, the mats, gift boxes and the number 10. All the paper and embellishments are from my stash.  The dog on the front is on a homemade action wobble. My granddaughter loves her dogs.

Okay yes another step card but they are fun to make and they look awesome. This one is for the older brother of the boy who got the car card above and this one also holds $$$ which all teen guys like. Masculine cards are a challenge for me but I think this one turned out very good.

Yep I love step cards, this one is cut the same as the one above but is overall smaller and fits in a standard A2 envelope.  This one is for my youngest son Robert to thank him for the his sweet & yummy Mother's day gift.  He has been accepted to Lawyer school and will start in the fall. I am extremely proud of him. I made a second one with slightly different paper for my oldest son and his family for their lovely figurine they gave me. My oldest son services his country in the USAF and leaves in about 1 week for a year in Korea, so your prayers for his safety would be greatly appreciated. Without the sacrifices of men & women like him we would not be able to live in this land of the free. Thanks Philip for your service, I am very proud of you. Can you tell I love my boys???

Okay last one I promise.  I made this card for my Pastor's wife to thank her for being an awesome Pastor's wife, friend & for all she did in putting together a wonderful women's retreat. The word "THANKS" is from my George Cricut cartridge.  I also decorated a journal, pen & gift bag to match.


Well that's it for now from my corner of the web.  I hope you have enjoyed your visit and will leave me a comment so I know you stopped by. I wish you all a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

God Bless,
Vickie