New Year’s Thank You Card Blog Hop!

 

Welcome to my Blog and the New Year’s Thank You Card Blog Hop! If you've come from visiting Shannon at http://www.purplelionpaper.com/blog/, you're in the right place. If you were just looking at my blog and want to play along with our blog hopping fun, you can go to the beginning at http://www.craftycardgallery.blogspot.com.  

This blog hop is intended to help you with ideas for Thank You Cards. There are 35 blogs participating in this hop so you are guaranteed to have lots of inspiration.  You are almost done the hop and have only 1 more blog to go after mine. I hope you like my blog and I would LOVE to have new followers!

Since this blog hop is taking place on New Year's Eve, I just HAD to incorporate a little bit of New Years Eve decor and fun!  I wanted to make my card celebratory.  Since we are going to my parents house to ring in the New Year, I decided to make this card for her to thank her for hosting dinner and a party.  

 
Supplies for the Card: 
Black, Red and Blue Cardstock
Cricut Cartridge Martha Stewart All Occasions Cake Art (Thank You sentiment)
Cricut Cartridge Simply Charmed (Hat)
Black Button
Martha Stewart "White Gold" glitter
Xyron

Supplies for the Champagne Glasses:

Plastic Champagne Glasses (I purchased mine at a party supply store)
Cricut Cartridge Martha Stewart All Occasions Cake Art
Recollections Silver Shimmer Cardstock
Adhesive

Champagne Glass How-To:
For those of you who dont know, I love, love, love Martha Stewart. That being said, I cannot claim these champagne glasses as my own!  For the how-to, see Martha's instructions here:  


http://www.marthastewart.com/photogallery/new-years-for-everyone#slide_15


For my glasses, I used the font from Cricut Cartridge Martha Stewart All Occasions Cake Art and stretched them out for fun.

Supplies for the Pom-Pom:

Black Tissue Paper
String
Ranger Perfect Pearls Mist in Heirloom Gold


Pom-Pom's are the perfect party decor for any occassion. I decided to go spray happy and spritz mine with Perfect Pearls...it was such a success. The gold shimmer against the black pom-pom looked marvelous! Once again, the credit goes to Martha Stewart.  The tutorial is up on her website.  Here's the link:  


http://www.marthastewart.com/how-to/tissue-paper-pom-poms-how-to

Now that we are done the card and project, your VERY LAST BLOG on the hop is Janie over at http://www.typicalscrapbooker.com

I hope you enjoyed my card, champagne glasses and pom-pom decor.  I'd love it if you become a stalker follower of my blog and leave comments!

Christmas Table Seating Cards and Dessert Cards

This year was the first time we hosted Christmas Eve at our house. There was much to be done in order to prepare for this big dinner: cleaning, cooking, baking, crafting. Although I had a lot I wanted to do, not all of it got done. I did manage to squeeze some time in and create these table seating cards and since there were sooo many desserts, I had a dessert table and created cards for those too!

Supplies:
Base Layer of Card:  Anna Griffin "Holiday Traditions" paper stack
Layer 1 of card: K & Company "Yuletide" paper stack
Cricut cartridge "Winter Woodland". Poinsettia on page 4 cut at 1.5
Chalk Ink
Font used is "A Yummy Apology"

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!!

2010 "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!" Christmas Card

Here are a few pictures and details on our 2010 family Christmas card that we mailed out to dear friends and family.  The layout and concept was taken from Cardmaker magazine.

Supplies:
Kraft cardstock
Teal Shimmer cardstock
White cardstock
White pigment ink
White and Teal chalk ink
Martha Stewart Glitter Embossing Powder in Sugar Cube
Embossing Ink
Twine
Cricut seasonal cartridge "When It's Cold Outside"
White Satin Ribbon
Foam Squares
Cuttlebug "Snowflakes" embossing folder (for inside detail)
Adhesive

The card is 5x7 and snowflakes cut a 2". It was important to me to add some detail on the inside of the card so with the leftover teal scraps, I ran them through the cuttlebug and added it at the bottom of the card.

Happy Birthday Giselle! (Card)

As most of you know, it was not only my birthday this month, but Giselle's too! We have so much in common, I think we were meant to become friends :) Giselle just recently got a Cricut Imagine machine for her birthday. And for her gift, I really wanted to help her out and build her Imagine cartridge library. I thought "Better Together" would be an appropriate cartridge to get her since you can use it for many occassions!  In fact, I have this cartridge as well and used it to create her birthday card.

Supplies:
Kraft, Blue and White Cardstock
Blue satin ribbon
Blue Sticky Jewels (for this project, I used Elmers)
Twine
Stickles
Adhesive

Happy Birthday Giselle, I wish you many, many more!
xoxo, Nadia

5 Year Anniversary Card - WIth the Imagine!

November 22 marked 5 years together with my husband. Its always our tradition to exchange handmade cards and ever since this Spring when I discovered Cricut products it has become so much more involved and fun.  Now with the Imagine, when I'm crunched for time, card making has become even easier and a lot less time consuming.  With the holidays, my birthday and so many other events just around the corner, I didn't have much time for this card. I used Imagine More Cards, inked the edges of the card and layers and with chalk ink and added foam dots for dimension.  To make the bird cage effect look more realistic, I added twine for the "hanging bird cage" look.  For that special added touch, a Tim Holtz key and tag were used as well as a ribbon. Pictures were taken prior to adding the sentiment.

Supplies:
Cricut Imagine
Cricut Imagine "Imagine More Cards" cartridge
Kraft cardstock
White cardstock
ColorBox Chalk Ink (Chestnut)
Tim Holtz Locket Key and Tag
Brown satin ribbon
Twine

Birthday with the Imagine (or not!) - Part 3: Cupcake Toppers and Wrappers

So aren't these birthday party decorations hot or what? And the posts aren't over yet guys! There's still more to come. A banner and favours are coming up in the next week.  And be sure to visit Giselle's blog (www.crossmyheartpapercrafts.blogspot.com). She's already got a post in which she makes her own cupcake stand, boxes, etc. She's got more birthday posts coming up too! Seriously, if you've never dropped by her blog, you are missing out.  Giselle can take any cut from a cricut cartridge and turn it into the classiest ever card/craft. This girl has loads of talent and I'm probably her #1 fan/stalker. In addition, she shares her gypsy files if you e-mail her and she's quick to respond.  She inspires me to be a better and more ambitious crafter.

Anyhoo, onto todays post.  So for today's decorations, I didn't use the Imagine.  I only used my expression machine.  I stayed away from the cupcake image because I wanted the focus to be on the cupcakes themselves, since the frosting is sooo beautiful, that's where I want everyone's attention to go to. And since it's my birthday, I decided these cupcake toppers needed my initial on them!

Read below for pics and the deets on:

Cupcake Toppers:
Scalloped Circle from Mini Monograms cut at 2.5 using DCWV Sweet stack
Circle from Mini Monograms cut at 2
Initial "N" from Storybook cute at 1.3/4
toothpicks
Scotch tape

Cupcake Wrappers:
Easter 2010 Seasonal cartridge - cupcake wrappers cut at 3.3/4 (when using a 8.5x11 piece of paper, you can fit 2 a page)

*TIP: If you have a shakey hand while frosting your cupcakes, you can always add a chocolate or peanut butter drizzle to the top of your cupcakes to conceal any mishaps!*

Birthday with the Imagine - Part 2: Water Bottle Labels and Napkin Wraps

Part 2 of my Birthday celebration are water bottle and napkin wraps.  Let me begin by saying I LOVE water bottle labels.  This is my third time doing these, first time using Cricut tools.  Water bottle labels are very easy to put together and when using a standard 8.5x11 sheet of paper, you can get 5 labels a page when cut at 2 inches wide.  They are easy decor and bring so much attention and detail to any party. I think they are super impressive and lots of fun!

Supplies for the Napkin Wraps:
Pink Napkins
Premium Plastic Cutlery (I used Elegant Ware from Dollarma.  A pack of 24 cost $2 and it looks like silverware!)
Brown satin ribbon
Cricut Imagine
Cricut Imagine "Better Together" cartridge

Supplies for the Water Bottle Labels:
Water Bottles
Patterned paper (DCWV Sweet Stack)
Pink Cardstock
White Cardstock
Martha Stewart Punch around the Page
Foam Squares
Stickes (Star Dust)
Adhesive
Cricut Imagine
Cricut Imagine "Yummy" cartridge

Instructions for the Water Bottle Wraps:
1)  Using 8.5x11 pink cardstock (or any colour to match your theme), cut 2 inch thick strips (length should be 8.5).  Repeat with pattern paper but this time make the strips 1 inch thick.
2) Run two strips of adhesive at each end of the strip.  I recommend the ATG because I find the bond is stronger than most tape runners.
3)  Tear off original label from the water bottle.
4)  Place new label around the bottle and press firmly.
5)  If using pattern paper, wrap your next layer around the bottle.
6)  Add the strip of Martha Stewart border punch paper.
7)  Adhere your image to the water bottle.

*If you'd like, water bottle labels can also double up as seating arrangement cards by adding a tag to the water bottle label*