Good morning, everyone!

This week’s card started out with me just wanting to use the giraffe stamp from the Hero Arts Birthday 6×8 stamp set. (I seem to like giraffe’s recently, huh?) Anyway, he’s super cute and after I stamped him, it looked like he needed a friend, too. So that’s when the little bird came into the picture.

So fun!

Enjoy the video below, or you can catch it over at YouTube. Thanks for watching!

Hi all! Just a quick update this morning. Obviously June’s Virtual Card Club wasn’t ready in time… hopefully I’ll have it ready by this weekend. If you’re hankerin’ for some VCC, and haven’t made the projects for past months, you can see them here. Was anyone else’s month of June just crazy busy? Seriously… I hope things slow down a bit and I can enjoy the rest of the summer. :)

I also wanted to share with you one of the layouts I created for the Garden over at TwoPeas. Used lots of Cosmo Cricket’s Early Bird collection on this layout. The theme in the Garden this month is “fashion inspired,” so I based the layout on this dress I bought not too long ago (paired with a white shrug, it’s super cute). I used the pattern piecing as inspiration for the layout :)

Check out the page and more details by clicking here. :)

NOTE: Yes, I know I spelled “Remembering” wrong… LOL! At least I spelled it right when typing up this blog post! :) I’m sure we’ve all done that on pages once or twice.

(c) Two Peas in a Bucket

So, here’s a little video showing you some of the things that I’ve recently added to my craft stash (sometimes lovingly referred to as “scrap crap”). Enjoy! :)

Items mentioned in video:

• Fancy Pants Designs Kraft This Girl collection
  Papertrey Ink buttons
• Hero Arts Scallop Circle stamp
• Hero Arts Misty Flower and Dot stamp
• Hero Arts Summer Art Flowers
• Hero Arts Neutral Felt Buttons
• Hero Arts Summer Felt Buttons
• Hero Arts Notecards
• Hero Arts Birthday 6×8 stamp set
• My Mind’s Eye Andrea Victoria collection
• Sassafrass Lass Monkey Business Brads
• Sassafrass Lass Sunny Day Blossoms
• KI Memories Summer Chipboard Alpha

NOTE: Because I’ve been strapped to a computer all day, I won’t have a new MACM video for ya’ll this week. But no worries. I’ll have a different kind of video up Monday night–one that’s been requested quite a bit. No, NOT my craft room… gotta clean up for that, ya know?

I redesigned again. It looks… a bit like it did before I switched over to Wordpress. This design is pretty much all me. :) I didn’t base it off any pre-bought template and I like it that way. Rather liberating.

Simple. Clean. Lets the blog entries speak for themselves. :)

Anyhow, if you find any weird bugs, please let me know. I thought I broke my blog earlier and it took quite a bit of troubleshooting to figure out what I did to make it crash.

Thanks!

A couple weeks ago, I was contacted by Todays Mama to do a review of the Cricut Expression cutting machine. This is part of ProvoCraft’s Cricut Ticket campaign–you can win a cruise just by buying cartridges! Pretty sweet! For more info about the campaign, and to see the brand-spankin’ new cartidges I talk about in the review below, click here.

On a sidenote… Yes, I realize I’m not a mama myself. :) But the todaysmama.com site looks pretty great! So check it out! They are giving away the four cartridges I reviewed, too, and you could win them. Check it out here. :)

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The bulk of my review is in the video below. For projects created using the cartridges, keep scrolling down. They’re right below the video. :)

As far as using the machine, there are some definite advantages over the Silhouette (or at least the older SIlhouette model that I own… I can’t compare it to the newer Silhouette machine). For one, the Cricut is a LOT quieter. I enjoyed that immensely. :) Also, it handles large dimensions of paper. However, that does make it a larger machine. That might be one of the only drawbacks about the Cricut Expression: it’s footprint is rather large. Definitely not something you want to tote around like the Making Memories Slice.

The real question I suppose is will I be keeping my Quickutz Silhouette? Yes. Although it now has a permanent home on my desk at work. I’ve found a million uses for it that have nothing to do with scrapbooking. :) Also, does this replace my Making Memories Slice? No. The Slice is much more transportable. Granted, I don’t use the Slice as often recently, but I don’t think I’m ready to give it up either. ;)

Man, why do I keep collecting all these toys?! It’s craziness! I really need to organize my scrap crap. Hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll get to do that. Roommate Jen is moving out, so I’ll be re-organizing my office again. I’m sad to see her go (sniff sniff!), but it also means that I will have a bit more space for all my crafting stuff.

BTW, you can check out the digital die cutting kits I mention in the video here. You’ll need SCAL (Sure Cuts a Lot) to use it with the Cricut.

NOTE: One more thing to mention. The cutting mat for the Cricut is SUPER sticky. In fact, the first time I used it, it tore my paper when I peeled the paper off. After 4 or 5 times of cutting things (and being super careful after that first initial tearing incident), it mellowed out and wasn’t as sticky. Just a heads up. :)

Anyhow, on to the projects I created with the cartridges…

Using the Stand and Salute cartridge:
This card was made with some of my standard kraft card stock, red American Crafts card stock, and blue Dotted Swiss paper. I also threw in a little scallop edge punched with Fiskars Scallop Sentiment punch.

Using Jubilee cartridge:
I went for a tone-on-tone look for this card. Super simple, but super sweet, too. :) Just some basic kraft card stock, and American Crafts turquoise paper.

Using Simply Sweet cartridge (plus basic circles from the Accent Essentials cartridge):
Another circle card! This time, I cut the circles with the Cricut and put a brad threw them. In the second picture you can see it fanned out. :) The patterned paper I used on this card is My Minds Eye’s Andrea Victoria collection.

Using the Home Décor cartridge:
I’m constantly sketching out card ideas on little scraps of paper and have been looking for a little sketchbook to keep them in. Instead, I decided to make one! The pages inside have boxes sized to standard card sizes (but obviously reduced). This is a simple booklet made the same way as my Allison notebook. Anyhow, if you want to create a sketch notebook, you can download the interior pages here. I used Cosmo Cricket’s Early Bird papers for this one.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the projects! They were fun to come up with. :)