That Extra 20%

I've been watching those Michaels ads for a sale on Recollections paper for a few weeks.  Every Sunday morning, I have checked.  There was a sale for 3 for $10, but I'm in it for the REAL sales!  And alas, this morning there was the 4 for $10 sale WITH the extra 20% coupon to use from 4-9pm today only!  Yay!  I had to make sure I hit the store after church because I am completely out of some colors!  (I apologize for the sideways pictures; I rotated them, but they won't adjust.)

I bought 3 packs of the primary colors.  I never thought I'd need just the primary because I had the Wausau 12x12, but I guess after Cricut-ing for quite some time, I eventually ran out!  I love all the other Recollections colors like Soda Pop and Butterfly, but I guess when it comes to some cuts, the basic colors are a must!

I also use a ton of black with the Cricut as it's often a layer.  It's also awesome for those silhouette cuts!  I have the Wausau 12x12 of that too, but I'm getting close to finishing that pack, and I'd like to save my 12x12s for things that actually need to be that big.  That's why I bought 3 of these as well.

Since it was 4 for $10, I needed to pick 2 more packs.  I have enough of the other colors and the kraft for the moment, so I got a pack of just red since that is the color I ran out of quickly due to it being used rather often AND for Christmas cards.  Then I got a pack of white so I can use it for card bases (I have a 250 stack of Wausau white cardstock that's good for layering and such, but it's rather flimsy for card bases).  I hope it's as durable as the colors.

As I was just strolling up and down the aisles, I stopped by the punches since they were 40% off.  With the extra 20% off, it made it a teensy bit cheaper than just a 50% off.  I have been looking at a lot of paper flower arrangements for parties and weddings, and I was thinking about doing the centerpieces for my wedding.  I don't know if it'll be possible, but I'm always intrigued by the pictures I find!  I saw this when it first came out on Scrapbook.com, and I was tempted to get it.  Thankfully, I saw the picture of this in the Michaels ad because I had never seen it at my M's beforehand!  Yay for sales + coupons!  It cost $8.15 (regularly $16.99).  I'm excited to try it after I watch some videos and make sure that I want to keep it.

The last thing I purchased was Recollections cling stamps.  I had seen this nativity set way before the Christmas season, but when I went there recently on Black Friday, I couldn't find it!  For some reason, I was able to find it today.  It was on clearance for $4.99 so I couldn't use the extra 20% off, but I bought it because I didn't want to miss out on it.  Personally, I'm not so sure I like the kids dressed up as animals, haha, but I love all the other stamps!

Well, that was my mini haul!  Hope you enjoyed seeing some of my new goodies!

Ice Cream Sundae Happiness

This past holiday weekend was spent making 3 different Christmas cards (one was the stocking one I already posted), but after a while, I was kind of tired of Christmas images and paper.  I wanted to do something fun!  I think what inspired me to use different cartridges was the fact that they had carts on sale at Michaels, AC Moore, and Joann.  I didn't buy any new ones even though I had plans to go out early (I'm watching the price of Campin' Critters, and I'm hoping Cricut.com has a sale so I can get some Lites because the Walmart by me doesn't have Lites anymore!).  Instead of spending money, I really sat and examined the images on the carts I already have.  I decided to use the ice cream sundae from the Just Because cartridge that I wanted so much and that my fiance Howard bought for me fairly recently as a surprise!  

I love the idea of having an ice cream sundae in a metallic dish.  It just reminds me of old-fashioned ice cream shoppes (haha, not that I've ever been to one!).  There used to be this restaurant in the Poconos in Pennsylvania called Beaver House where we got parfaits at the end of our meal.  From what I remember, they served them in these tall, metal dishes, and I loved it!  That's why this image was really something I wanted to use.  However, when I cut the pieces out, it seemed a little plain, so that's why I had such fun adding all the faux stitching in different colors using my ultra-fine Bic Mark-It markers.  I really like the added lines.  

I used a Martha Stewart border punch to add a white strip of paper over the striped paper for 2 reasons: (1) I needed something on which I could stamp the sentiment [Pink by Design's "Big Thoughts"] and (2) I had a lot of extra strips of white cardstock since I keep having to trim it down to fit A1 envelopes (when I accidentally bought 1000 A1 envelopes instead of A2!)

Though my cards are typically really simple, I still have a ton of fun making them.  My "real life" friends really like them too since they're still purchasing them from my Facebook store (http://www.facebook.com/loveandsushi).  It makes me happy to make sales especially now as I'm hoping to eventually gift every type of animal available on World Vision (I've decided to set aside 50% of what I make for it).  Right now the goal is the $50 for 4 chickens!  Hopefully, the more cards I make, the faster I can reach that goal!  

Christmas Stocking

This past Friday, I went out to Michaels during the Black Friday sale!  I wasn't going specifically for any major purchases.  My goal was Christmas paper for cards!  I have a lot of paper pads from Michaels already, but none of them worked with Christmas cards that I wanted to make.  I initially found all the DCWV stacks, but I wasn't that crazy about them because there were only 48 sheets in each.  Plus, they were oh-so-pretty that I knew I'd have trouble cutting into them!  Those pages would work better with scrapbooks anyway, in my opinion.  My mom was with me, and she found the huge 180 stack called "Jolly and Bright."  It was perfect!  Tons and tons of pages with different color schemes!  Lots of variety for only $7!  The paper pads were 50% off, and there was an extra 30% coupon that I used on top of it.  Oh, how I love a good deal!

This was one of the cards I made during this Thanksgiving break using the new paper.  The stocking was cut from Joys of the Season, which is a cartridge I had not yet used.  I've been getting better at using the cartridges I haven't touched yet.  Having the Gypsy makes that so much easier.  In the past, I was too lazy to deal with cutting out so many pieces from a certain layer just to get all the right colors I needed.  Gotta love that "hide" feature on the G!  It also makes it so much easier to make multiples AND to use scrap paper.  Even with Cricut Craft Room finally out and being free to use doesn't make me regret having my G at all.  I'd much rather design on the whim instead of having to turn on my desktop and be online.  Wow, talk about a digression ...

After I cut out the 6 stockings, I knew it needed a little extra something.  That's why I added the faux stitching with my white Recollections marker.  Then I added Stickles to the "bell" part of the stockings to add some shine.  I think the background paper works really well with it because it has the same 3 colors.  Plus, I love paper that has text!

I'm actually really happy with how this card turned out.  When I initially cut out the stocking, I thought it was kind of a lost cause.  I'm glad I stuck with it instead of tossing them in my box of cut images!

My Kind of Weekend: Cake and Crafting

I had a really rough week at work last week, so I was glad to be enjoying a weekend of not that much to do.  I did my lesson plans on Friday night (although not all were completed because I completely forgot the 8th grade math textbook at school, which is the only one I need to transport back and forth), and I also input grades into Engrade.  I seriously cringe when I think about what I did during my first and second year of  teaching before I knew about Engrade!  There are a bunch of teachers at my school who use it now, and it saves so much time because no calculations have to be done.  Yay for that!

On Saturday morning, I graded a few more tests and input those into Engrade when they were done.  But I was ready to do some relaxing.  Howard came over in the early afternoon, and when I answered the door, he was carrying something in a big, brown bag.  I didn't know what it was, but apparently it was a surprise for me!

He made me "box cake"!  That's what I call cake made from a boxed mix, haha.  I have been wanting "box cake" since my birthday back in September, and he made it for me because of the rough week I had!  How sweet is he?  Hehe, and you can see that I had to eat some before taking this picture ... whoops!  I thought it was so loving of him to do something to cheer me up.

That was clearly the cake part.  The crafting part was relaxing too.  My mom got flowers last week from the family of the little boy she works with at school (she's a para for him in kindergarten). She asked me to make him a thank you card, and she specified that the little boy loves horses. I was excited to finally use the horse cut from my Create a Critter cartridge. I didn't have 3 different shades of brown that went together, so the snout part of the horse was cut using white cardstock, and I colored it in using one of my Copic markers.

I used a Martha Stewart punch for the stars on the red cardstock, and the sentiment is from Inkadinkado. I did end up filling in the gaps in the word with my Zig Writer black marker, but I had it downstairs so that was after I took the picture.  Simple card, but I like it!  I thought about adding some faux stitching to the bandana or something, but I didn't want to ruin anything just in case I made a mistake.

Ahhh, good weekend, and thankfully, there are 2.5 days this week until THANKSGIVING, which is my all-time favorite holiday.  Yay!

Crafting with Students: Appreciation for Veterans

Last week, we had our student council assembly for those students who wanted to run for any of the positions available.  We also combined it with our Veteran's Day assembly since there were 2 days off this week, throwing off our schedule a bit.  The grandmother of one of our students spoke about being an army nurse. She explained the importance of Veteran's Day to the students. She asked that we make cards for those in the veterans hospital so that she could bring them today. She explained that when the soldiers come back injured and wounded, they just get moved to the hospital and there isn't the same "fanfare." She said that she wanted to give them the recognition they deserved.

I teach 6th and 8th grade English Language Arts, so I was responsible for those classes. These cards were made by my 6th graders (I introduced them to stamps!). They really understood the sacrifice the soldiers made and the honor they deserve. Their heartfelt words really amazed me (way more than the 8th graders did!), and they took the time to make beautiful cards! (I think that class also understands it more because we're doing WWII historical fiction in class.)

8th grade cards (they were amazed with the stamps; I brought in the thank you set by Inkadinkado)

6th grade cards (on this day, I forgot to bring in the acrylic block, so I thought we couldn't use the stamps; I ended up sticking the stamps to the lid of the StazOn ink pad!)

In the past, we all look forward to Veteran's Day because it's a day off from school, but I hope that from now on, they all truly understand it.