Exciting Announcement

First apologies for the neglect - that darn life keeps sneaking up on me and I was sidelined by an illness - but what can you do?? But we interrupt this apology for an exciting announcement!

Caroline (from Caroline's Craftography) and I are thrilled to announce our new challenge blog – Paper Craft Weekend Challenge! You can expect a challenge with a project to inspire you every Friday and Sunday. The only rule we expect you to stick to is having fun! We are not going to limit ourselves to one type of machine or project – so get your materials and get ready to use your stuff (instead of just collecting it – not that we aren’t guilty of that too).  There will be some tutorials along the way – and it wouldn’t be any fun if we didn’t have friends occasionally stopping by – so please come join us and get ready to get your craft on!

We are launching the blog today and we kick off the challenges tomorrow - where I will have TWO projects to share  - so I hope to see you there!

Flame Free Party

I promise I haven't forgotten my promise to show you those re-purposed popcorn boxes! Life just gets away from me sometimes! But before I do, I would like you to take a minute to go this blog, Flame Free Party at the Paper Midwife and make a donation. My friend Kymberlee's two daughters and grandchildren lost everything in a horrible fire (which you can read all about here) and so she is having a raffle for a Cricut Imagine! With every $5 donation you get a chance to win the Imagine - and the more you donate the more chances you get! So you get the chance to help some really deserving people out and perhaps be rewarded yourself in the process! I promise this is a legitimate cause - Kymberlee is a generous, giving person herself and I would love to see her raise lots of money for them. Please re-post this on your own blog or Facebook if you can - and I promise to not to hold out on those popcorn boxes much longer!

One of a Kind Card

Hello everyone! Today is my day on The Bug Bytes - I have a simple card to share with you today and for once I am not embarrassed by one of my cards.  I made this for a dear friend and I can't wait for her to get it in the mail!

The details: 

I have been dying for Preserves forever and I finally indulged myself in one of the last cricutmachine.com sales. I don't know why I wanted it so badly - this card must have been in my head wanting to get out! Then when I got the K and Company Citrus Bliss paper stack at Joann's I decided it was card destiny! That's a real thing right??

I cut out the grapes with all layers at 4 inches and used papers from my scrap paper stash. I wanted to add some more dimension to all the flat papers so I inked all of the layers before assembling. I was very pleased with how the leaves turned out. A closeup of the bunch:

 For my "one of a kind" grape I cut a circle at 0.70 inches from George and Basic Shapes. I used the layers feature on my Gypsy to figure out what would be the right size. Then I stamped with a Peachy Keen face stamp, added a touch of glossy accents to the eyes and pop-dotted it on the front. The card base from DCWV while the purple background paper as well as the sentiment stickers are from the K & Company Citrus stack.

On the inside I think I am going to add "...is the kind of friend you are!" and pop it in the mail with a little treat.  I haven't forgotten my promise to show you the recycled popcorn boxes - that will be next!

Candle Table Decorations

Now we are on to the table decorations - I wanted them to be elegant but still fit in with our casual party setting. I also love putting pictures on candles and I couldn't wait for everyone to see my parent's wedding photo.

The details:

For the candles, I created a simple "40" using shrinky dinks and then colored itt with a red stamp pad. The trick is to mold the shrinky dink to a glass right when you take it out of the oven so it holds to the candle better. Then I simply attached it with mini glue dots. 

 

For the candle holder I found these wonderful heart shaped glass bowls at the Dollar Tree - with some vinyl and some red gems they turned out fantastic.

I used the Elegant Cakes font as well as the "anniversary" phrase  - which I think is so lovely with all the scrolls - and much easier to cut out in vinyl than in paper. I laid out the phrases as I wanted them on the Gypsy, grouped them, and then re-sized them to be under two inches to fit on the side of the glass bowl.

I think finally you are ready to see how everything looked at the party!

I hope these have inspired you for your next anniversary occasion, and remember next week I will show you how I took the leftover popcorn boxes and re-purposed them for another baseball picnic!

Simple "40" Favors

Well of course I couldn't let there be just one type of favor at the party, could I?? So if you take another look at yesterday's picture, there were a few sweet treats in there for the guests with a sweet tooth. I had to keep them simple as well - since I was running out of time!

The details:
I found some red cherry gummy slices at the grocery store - so to make this favor, I put two in a bag, cut out a blackout shape at 4 inches from Elegant Edges and added my welded "40" from Elegant Cakes. I believe I didn't mention in my last post that I used red vinyl for all the "40"s on my favors. It cuts beautifully and I don't have to worry about adhesive  - it works as your own quick sticker!

I also filled these clear plastic tubes with red and white M and Ms. I have been obsessed with them ever since I saw them on the Circle blog , and I was fortunate enough to find them at CKC Buffalo (although I have seen them at ACMoore too!). These were a huge hit with the kids.

I simply added a white vinyl belly band and added a "40" in the center. I did change it up a little and I used the zero from Wall Decor and More because I wanted to have the scrolly tail on the end. They were so easy to throw together and I am dying to find more of these at a great price! If you come across a super deal - we could be new BFFs!

Up next will be the table decorations, more red and more vinyl , but that probably doesn't surprise you by now!



Fortieth Anniversary Extravaganza

I have a few posts for you this week - it was my parents' 40th wedding anniversary this year - and so I had a lot of fun creating table decorations and favors. Forty years is the Ruby Anniversary - which means a lot of red and white ahead! They are season ticket holders of the local minor league baseball so we had it at the ballpark under the party tent - they really enjoyed themselves and it was the perfect laid back party!

The details:
The focus of today's post is going to be the popcorn boxes, which are cut from Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More.

These were cut at a 6.50 inches which I rotated by 80 degrees on the Gypsy. By doing this I could fit one box on one piece of 8 1/2 by 11 paper. Then by trimming the paper 1/2 inch I was able to put 3 sheets on one 12x24 mat and cut them out 3 at a time. Since I was making 30 of them, this was an important detail.

The popcorn box has no layers, and when I cut it out in plain red they really didn't do anything for me. I really wanted to add the white border and it was not going to be productive to cut out each box twice just for that. Instead I put the popcorn box on one layer and then designed a border layer using circles and rectangles from George.

By repeating this pattern I made a pattern for a liner that ultimately resulted in a white border at the top of the box.

The "40" is cut from Elegant Cakes at 1.50 inches while the scallop is from Mini Monograms at 2.50 inches. I filled them with bags of peanuts and homemade cinnamon sugar popcorn. They were a great success and the peanuts went much faster than I expected. Don't worry though - I took care of all that extra popcorn.

In the end, I had made way more boxes than I ended needing, but don't worry - I found a great way to re-purpose them - and you should look for a post next week to see how they turned out in their second life. Stay tuned for more red and white!

Dr. Seuss meets Graduation Cards

I am super excited to share these cards with you today. I have done a few Dr. Seuss-related plays and when those students graduated this year I decided to add a Dr. Seuss twist to their grad cards. You can see my other graduation cards here; I followed the same recipe for an easel card and just changed the front of the card.

The details:

I began with a circle using George sized at 2.82 inches. The font I used is Cutting Up, which is very Seuss friendly and just the right style. I arranged the "Thing 1" on the circle and then cut it out with white paper. The letters ended up being .68 inches while the numbers were 1.20 inches. I cut a larger circle in black  at 3.20 inches which gave me the black letters and outside border.

I cut the grad hat from Locker Talk in turquoise at 1.50 inches with a white tassel and added a gem brad. For the year I used the Elegant Cakes font with the shadow layer at 1 inch. The inside of the card was done with a Studio G stamp and a Martha Stewart punch for the corners.

I was so pleased with the way that these came out. As soon as I can find red shirts in a toddler size, I want to make "Thing" matching shirts for a friend who has twins. And while I keep my fingers crossed for that Dr. Seuss Cartridge I will continue to make do with what I have!