wedding cards

A really sweet girl that I work with is getting married for the first time in a few weeks and we are having her a wedding shower at work. I couldn't really decide what kind of card to make her so I made both of these. The one with the ring and heart on it is a total scraplift of Donna Mundingers wedding card that she sent me and Todd when we got married last September. Only hers is much prettier. I tried to use her wedding colors in this one. I wasn't real pleased with how it turned out so I made what I call a traditional wedding card in cream and black. Now that I have them both made and I have them side by side I am having a hard time deciding which one to give to her. I think I may just end up giving her both of them. Anyway, I would love to hear which one you like best and if you think I should give her both cards.....

I am a Cricut Demonstrator- YEAH

OK, I wanted to share some really great news with all of you. I would have shared it last week but I was so afraid that I would end up jinxing something and it would not happen. I have been asked to be the Cricut Demonstrator for the Michael's store in my area. I was so excited when I got the email. One I love Michael's but most of all I absolutely love love love my cricut. Anyway, this past Sunday (yesterday) was my first day. I was demonstrating the E and I have to admit, although the E is what I have I was a little nervous about being in front of a lot of people talking about it. I didn't fall asleep until 4am Sunday morning worrying about whether I had everything that I needed and what exactly I was going to do and then I was up at 8:30am. After I got to Michael's and got everything set up and people started coming by and asking me questions, I started to realize, oh wait a minute I know all of these answers, anyway, it didn't take long before I was getting into it.I had taken some of my cards to set up as samples and I got so many positive compliments on my cards, it really made my heart smile. They are sending me a Cricut Cake machine this week that I get to demonstrate on Sunday. I am so excited about that. I have had my eye on that cake machine since day 1 I just haven't convinced myself to go and buy one. Now I will have one in my house to play with. I am really excited. The Sunday after that I am demonstrating the Yudu and I have to admit I am a little anxious about that. I have never played with one so if any of you out there have one or can give me some pointers on it that would be great. Anyway, I wanted to share my excitement with you. Poor Jeannie, I have talked her ears off over the excitement of doing this. I absolutely love the cricut and now I get an opportunity to show others. Plus the fact that I get paid to hang out at Michaels and play with my cricut, how exciting is that.....Anyway, I wanted to share my excitement with you, my friends.....

birthday card- the story behind the card is so funny

Tomorrow is Todd's birthday so I wanted to make him a birthday card. OK, so you may be asking yourself why I would have chosen a raccoon to put on his card. Well, that leads to a very funny story. Apparently he grew up in a town where there was not much wildlife. We live in town but it is so amazing how we can sit on our back porch and almost every evening see 7-9 deer walk right up in our backyard. I sure you remember the horror stories that I told you about the deer eating our flowers. Anyway, the deer and the flowers are another post and another story, this story is about the raccoon. Well, like I said, we live right smack in the middle of town so you don't really expect much wildlife in town. Well, apparently any other town but our town. Well, for about the last three weeks we kept having something getting in our trash. It would actually lift the lid off of our trashcan and set it to the side. I kept thinking we had a raccoon but then I also kept thinking, nah, not in town. Well, the other night while I was talking to my sister on the phone, while sitting on the back porch joking about the fact that there were 7 deer in the back yard paying no attention to me on the phone when I saw what appeared to be a very large cat. Well, I start walking closer as this thing climbs the tree, at closer look I realize that it is a raccoon so I just kinda back away because I was a little leary of it, not scared, just leary...... I came in the house and told Todd about what I had seen outside. Well a few hours passed and we were sitting in the family room watching tv when I heard the lid knock off of the trash can. I told Todd, there is the raccoon, I jump up to go outside to scare him off. Well, I look behind of me and there is Todd with the flashlight in hand. He shined it on the trashcan and there was the raccoon just staring at us. He dropped the flashlight and was in the house faster than I have ever seen him move. I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. I kept telling him that we needed to scare the raccoon away because he would rip that trash bag to shreads. No sirry Bob, he wasn't going nowhere near anything that was outside. "You know those things carry rabies don't ya". Anyway, After I threw a water bottle at the raccoon and scared him off , I put the lid back on the trashcan. Still, Todd was going no where near the trashcan until he got in the vehicle and drove it as close to the trashcans as he could get it to make sure the raccoon was in fact gone....After closer inspection of the trashcans (from the vehicle) he did go and get a heavy brick to put on top of the trash can so Mr Raccoon couldn't get back in the trashcan that night. And yes, he would just "love" it if he knew I was telling this story, but I am sure you will all keep my secret. lol..... Anyway, after all of that excitement I knew that he had to get a very "special" birthday card. I knew it had to have a raccoon somewhere on it. I was actually thinking about going to the store and buying a stuffed raccoon and putting it down inside the trashcan and asking him to take the trash out for me but I really was afraid that might make me a widow....lol...I will save that trick until he really makes me mad over something...lol...too funny...wish all of you could have seen just how fast he can run.....anyway, hope you enjoyed the story and I hope it gave you a chuckle...I will be laughing my tail off til the end of time over this one.....Thanks for your comments, they really make my day!

My new Craft Area

OK, so I know it is small but that is alright....I am so excited to share pictures with all of you, my friends. I love my new craft "studio". It has everything right where I want it. I just don't know why I didn't think to do this sooner. I work for a company that manufactures slatwall. I got two pieces and some shelves from work and came home and went to work. I was so excited with how it started to come together. It is funny....I have joked and joked for months now that I have more paper than Michaels. After sorting through all my paper I realized that I truly do have more paper than Michaels. I have realized that I have a huge paper addiction. "hello, my name is Vicki and I am addicted to paper". The plastic containers underneath my tables, wow, what a bargin they were. I was in Wal-mart and went down their clearance isle and found these on clearance for $7. I got both of them, too bad they didn't have more. I guess they were on clearance because they were green. The black cabinets that you see that I have all my brads and buttons and other embellishments, these are in the hardware dept at Wal-mart. They are supposed to be used for screws and bolts and things but they work perfect for your embellishments. The one thing I will have to do tomorrow at work is see if I can get another piece of MDF board to put over top of my little table. This was a steal that I found at CVS, the table top is a little thin and I guess during moving everything around I put too much weight on it because it is now warped, so I am going to get a piece of MDF board tomorrow and put on top of the table. I am actually going to get a piece that is a little bigger than the table is so I can have more room....There is still so much more that I want to do. I have two more walls in my little room and I can see shelves going up on them already. Anyway, thanks for taking a peak at my little room away from everything. Please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions please let me know. Thank you all!

Friends thru thick and thin

This was going to be my original Jeannie/Vicki raindrop challenge card. I actually had this one made and everything until I was laying in bed the night before we were going to post and the Gene Kelly, singing in the rain card hit me like a ton of bricks. I new then that I had to make that card. Of course, I really wish these ideas would come to me some other time except 11pm at night....Especially when I get up at 5:30am every morning...anyway, the sacrafices we make for our cards...lol...I hope you enjoy this card. I really did have a lot of fun making it. I was going for a friends thru thick and thin together theme. I know that most times you and your best friend are as different as cat and mice but the combination really works. I hope you enjoy it and thank you so much for your comments. They sure make my heart smile.....

Singin in the Rain- Jeannie/Vicki Challenge

Oh I really had so much fun with this challenge. Jeannie and I both have been talking a lot about the rain. I swear it has rained here everyday the last two weeks. I know that the rain is good but I would love to see some sunshine for a few straight days. Anyway, our challenge was to use the rain drops (or tear drops) from the A childs year cart. I had one card but changed my mind at the last minute. I will post that card later. Anyway, I was lying in bed that night and this card hit me. I knew it would be the perfect card for this challenge. I am a huge huge huge old movie buff. Well, singing in the rain is one of my favorite movies. So I have decided to name this monkey Gene after Gene Kelly in that movie. When I was looking through the create a critter cart and I saw this monkey it just looked like he could be jumping through a puddle....so with the monkey looking like this, all the rain, the fact that I am a huge old movie fan and the fact that we were using the rain drop this card just evolved. I hope that you all enjoy it because I sure did enjoy making it.

Baseball thank you card

I wanted to make a card for my son's baseball coach who happens to be my ex. It is amazing how far he has taken these kids in baseball. The have only lost one game all season and they are all, the entire team, playing so great. They are all 12 and it is amazing to watch 12 year old play the game of baseball and understand the fundamentals of the sport as well as they do. It is just like watching minature versions of the pro's.....only better.....because when they are this size you can tell that they are playing with all heart and are playing because they truly love the sport and want to be the best they can. I truly believe that sports are so great for kids. It teaches them to be team players and teaches them so much about life in general. Anyway, I wanted to make a special card and this is what I came up with. There team is name is Crush so I wanted to put that on the card somewhere and there colors are orange and black so I wanted to use those colors too. I used the baseball cart and welded the letters from basecamp for the word Crush. I figure either Brandon can give it to him himself or he can have all the boys sign it and they all give it to him. Either way I hope he likes it and knows how much I appreciate what all he is doing with those boys.

Brandon's Birthday card

OK, I have to admit when I saw Jeannie's retirement card with the fish on it my brain starting running all over the place. I needed to make a card for my son's birthday and was going to make him a baseball card. He loves baseball. Well actually he loves all sports and when he is not playing a sport he loves to be hunting. I remember when he was just 6 or 7 years old, My ex (who loves to hunt) had went out that morning and killed a deer. Well for weeks prior to this all Brandon could talk about was wanting to go deer hunting too. Well when my ex shot that deer that morning he didn't say anything to Brandon about killing the deer. He just told him that he needed his help. Well, Brandon grabbed his gun and was ready to go. Now this is the funny part, Brandon's gun was a bb gun. But to him it was a real gun. My ex had told him that he had just knocked the deer down and he needed Brandon's help. Well, let me tell you, That was all that child talked about for weeks and weeks. He had to have his picture taken with this deer and everything. He truly believed that he was the one that had shot him. Well, when I saw Jeannie's retirement card with the fish on it I knew what card I wanted to make for Brandon. I wanted to make him a deer hunting card. Jeannie thank you so much for the idea. I think Brandon will love it and I hope you do too.

Jeannie/Vicki Turtle card challenge

I know that everyone probably thinks that I have dropped off the face of the planet. I am so sorry about that. I have been so busy with work and just my life in general. Well even though I haven't been posting very much Jeannie and I have still been talking pretty much everyday. She actually is my inspiration behind of this card. We kept talking about doing more card challenges together and that I needed to post more cards so I asked her to pick a cart and pick a cut and we would do a card. She picked a great one. I really love this turtle from Create a critter. I new I wanted it to be a friend card because one of our very first challenges we did was a card with a turtle on it. Anyway, I kept thinking about what I was going to do and I kept thinking that true friends would go to any means to see or help one another. that is how the turtle finding a way to get to his friend across the water came to me. Sure the turtle could have walked around the water but that would have taken too long. True friends go to whatever means possible to help their friend the fastest way possible. That is how I came up with the parachute across the water. Jeannie, you truly are a great friend and I would parachute across a lake to help you anytime...Thank you so much for getting me back on the boards. I have missed everyone so much. Hopefully my life will slow down a little so I have more time to post.

gyspy challenge- gold and black

This week Nilda asked us to do a gold and black challenge. WEll, when she said black and gold I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I seem to have a one track mind when it comes to black and gold. I am a huge huge huge Pittsburg Steelers fan. This is what I came up with. Of course I would have loved to have seen the Steelers back in the Superbowl but I wanted them to know that I am still very proud to be a Steelers fan even though they didn't make it all the way this year. I hope you like it and thank you so much for looking and for leaving a comment

Party Favors Gypsy DT project

This week at http://the-gypsyspot.blogspot.com/ Nilda asked us to make party favors. I kept trying to think what kind of party favor I would make since New Years was over. Then it hit me, Valentine's Day is right around the corner. So I made these for my kids. In the bags I put Dove chocolate and in the sour cream containers I put M & M's. I love making the sour cream containers, they are so easy to make. I cut the rectangle out with my gypsy and added the heart from George to the center of the containers. For the boxes I used TBBM and used BB for the word love that is cut out in the center of the boxes. I then took the cutout of the word and put on the sour cream containers and the heart cutout from the container I put on the boxes. Wow, that sure is clear as mud isn't it...lol...if you look at the picture you will understand what I was trying to say. I hope you like them. They were a lot of fun to make. Thank you all again for being so patient while I was away. It is so nice to be back.

2010 Gypsy DT project card

I have been so far behind this last month getting anything posted to my blog or even the message board. I am so sorry for that. Hopefully I am just about ready to get "back to normal" if there is such a thing. This week over at the Gypsy DT, Nilda asked us to make a circle card welding 2010 somewhere on the card. Well since it was after New Years before I started on mine I was almost at a loss on what to do until one of my very dear friends told me it was his birthday on that Monday. I knew exactly what I was going to do then. I turned what could have been a New Years card into a birthday card. I hope you like it and thank you so much for looking and commenting and thank you so so much for being patient with me during my little break. Hopefully I am just about ready to get back to things full force.