I did it! I did it!

My free Studio J membership expires in just 3 weeks. I've had it for eleven months and I had never used it. I had never even looked at HOW to use it.  That changed yesterday. I figured I better learn so I can share with my customers. So I set about teaching myself with the many Studio J videos and then played yesterday afternoon and some today...and I will have 5 layouts...yep 10 pages...shipped to my door very soon.  I really enjoyed it, though I think it's a bit more of a strain on the eyes, neck and back sitting at a computer for a few hours at a time.  The best part was that there was NO MESS TO CLEAN UP AFTERWARDS :)
Anyway, here's my first 5 very simple layouts (I haven't watched all the videos...just the basic one and then learned by trial and error. The biggest lesson I learned was proofread carefully...there are a few typos that will need to be fixed :(  )

 I purposely left this layout extremely simple so I could add some embellishments and journaling to make it more like a traditional scrapbook page.

 There's also a few things I plan to do to this layout of my son to "fussy" it up a bit.

Tomorrow I will let you know the many benefits of digital scrapbooking versus traditional scrapbooking. They both have their pros and cons and I will likely do some of both!

FBTSOMP Birthday Banner

Yesterday afternoon we had a surprise birthday party for my daughter's fiance.
And of course I was flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants when I decided to make a birthday banner and layouts before the guests arrived.
This has to be some of the fastest work I have EVER done. The cricut and Art Philosophy cartridge helped A LOT!  I didn't take pictures in my craft room, so the photos aren't so great. Here's the banner:

This layout I created as a sort of supersized birthday card from our church where Caleb is the worship leader, and asked guests to sign the back:

I used the front of the CTMH Idea Book for my inspiration so I didn't have to take a lot of time designing the page.  Have I mentioned lately that I love the CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge for the Cricut? ( All products used were Close To My Heart)

Thanks for stopping by,
Marie with a :)

This One is For Michelle L: The Cricut boxes!

I told someone yesterday I would post different boxes that can be made with the Cricut but did not get time to cut and "cute-ify" some myself so am using a fellow Close To My Hearter's post to show them in their basic cut:

http://scrapguy.blogspot.com/2011/08/close-to-my-heart-cricut-art-philosophy.html

Michelle, the price I quoted for the french fry boxes can actually be cut in half. The pillow box would be the same price.  The others would be slightly more due to size of paper being used.


And for those who have a Cricut, or are anticipating getting one in the near future, here is a YouTube video that shows more that can be done with the Art Philosophy Cartridge that is exclusively CTMH's!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdUV0y4RFDI

Thanks for stopping by,
Marie with a :)

Hurry Up, Maggie! (A card, a layout and a question answered...)

Some sweet folks at our church are expecting their third baby girl this week and there are a lot of us who are nearly as impatient as they are for Baby Maggie's arrival.  Here's a card I made to go into a gift basket:

 This is an "easel" card and there is a youtube video for creating this type of card under my page "tutorials and such."  These are tutorials I have collected not written!

 I used one of our new 6 x 6 craft cards for this.

 The Cricut cuts the "scrolls" for the 3D flowers.  I'm still a little inept at rolling them though!

 Another Cricut butterfly :)

 I LOVE the old paper pack "More to Adore" and my stash is dwindling away. The stamps sets are retired ones (Sweet Baby and Solos W)

  

 Isn't this envelope adorable? Yep, it was cut with the Cricut to use on my layout:

 I used mostly new products on this, with a few retired thrown in.  New: Journaling spots, Typeset paper pack, Just Blooms butterflies, the Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge, Love Life stamp set (large scroll)  I also used the Token Alphabet stamp set, The You and Me stamp set (small scroll) and the Comments stamp set (retired) 

Oops! Wasn't until I posted this photo that I realized I am missing an opaque on the half cricle...

I was asked three times this week how I store my stamps.  My sister Samantha (http://samiesentiments.blogspot.com) is super organized...me, not so much. I simply put mine in dollar store crates according to size (A, B, C, D or E) and then alphabetically EXCEPT I keep a couple of crates with my "new" sets, a couple of photo storage boxes with stamp sets that are just sentiments and my Christmas sets are put away until I start making Christmas cards.  Wanna guess how many sets I have? 

274. Yep.  I 've been hostess for most of my workshops and working CTMH as a hobby, I had been putting everything back into more hobby supplies. Now it's time to get serious though and I am planning to move  from hobby to more of a fun job.  I'll be posting up coming classes and workshops soon!

Thanks for stopping by,

Marie with a :)