BBTB: Hot Stuff - Coffee/Tea Challenge

Hi all!

What a whirlwind week we had in Canada with my Cricut buddies!  I think we packed 3 trips into 1.  It will take a lot more than a 2 page layout to scrap all of our adventures.  In the meantime I have a layout today of a previous get together with me, Catherine and Ann for the BBTB Challenge - Coffee/Tea:

We met up in Baltimore at a paper crafters get together.  Afterwards we headed back to my house.  Cat had pinpointed every cupcake shop on our route AND set up reservation for tea!  Here is a closer look at each page.

This little cupcake is from a Cricut cartridge - I glammed it up with some glittery Stickles on the icing.

This little tea cup also came from a Cricut cartridge.  I used Liquid Pearls to enhance the steam swirl.

I made the title using Make The Cut (MTC).  It's so easy to add the fonts, a few cuts like the teapot and cupcake and then give it a shadow.  This little cuppie also got some glammed up icing.

The stacked cups are from Little Scraps of Heaven - she has fantastic SVGs.  I also used several stamps on these pages - old stamps I've had forever from Pink Cat Studio.  I colored them using my Polychromos Colored Pencils.

The stamp set came with an adorable border which was perfect along the bottom of my journaling.

I hope you can join our challenge!  Head over to BBTB and see the rest of the amazing projects by the other Design Team members!

And now a few pics from our recent adventure last week:

Hollyn (Pezza) & Cat's daughter Ava.

Me & Cat!

We adored Ava!

Ann & Craig

Boat time!

They loved the fishing each morning!

We spent the first 4 days at the lake staying in Cat & Bart's trailer - 6 adults and 2 small kids in a small 2 bedroom/1 bath trailer and there wasn't a single bump along the way.  Speaks volumes about what an amazing friendship we all have - us girls AND the hubbies too!

BBTB - Birthday Challenge

Hi all!

We are gearing up for another exciting trip - Canada/Niagara Falls with 2 of my oldest and dearest blogland/Cricut friends Ann and Catherine (Silly Skittles if anyone is still here from back in the day.)  The shenanigans are pretty extreme when Cat and I get together - Can. Not. Wait!

This week's challenge at Bitten By the Bug is birthdays.  Hollyn had a birthday party to go to so I made a little tag for the gift:

The Phrases cartridge has some great double layer tags - I use them quite a bit.  To get the little border across the bottom I made a duplicate of the top layer of the tag and positioned it on the border I chose and then used the Slice feature to get just what I wanted - so easy!  The cute little balloons are "Balloon Bouquet" from Miss Kate Cuttables.  It originally had 4 balloons but I used Make The Cut and cut it down to 2, took away the string and bow and then re-made a shadow that fit just the balloons.  A little embossing folder on the tag base and she had a cute little tag for her friend's gift!

Head over to the BBTB blog and see the other great projects and then make one to add to the blog!

BBTB - Travel Challenge

Hi all!

Well we are half way through summer already!  It seems to be going much faster than usual.  We took a trip into DC last week for the iceberg exhibit with a group of friends.  I forget how much I LOVE being in the city!  You would think I would go there more often.  This week my step mom is visiting and next week we will be heading to Canada to see 2 very close friends of mine whom I actually met on the original Cricut message board. 

Our challenge this week on Bitten By The Bug is Around the World/Travel and the timing couldn't be better for me to scrap the extra passport photo and story that goes with it from getting Pezza her new passport for Canada.

This is a bit of a new style for me with all the white space but I so rarely have a page with only 1 picture.  

When the lady was taking the picture of Pez she told her not to smile.  When I showed Pez the picture she laughed and said "That looks like the face I make when Daddy tells one of his bad jokes."  Hubby loves to tell corny jokes and does it SIMPLY to annoy her so I thought that was pretty funny.

We do most of our traveling by car with our camper so this little image was a must!

And I couldn't resist throwing on a few suitcases with my title - isn't that trunk fabulous!

I hope you can join the challenge and don't forget to hop over to the BBTB Blog and check out the other great projects the Design Team posted!

BBTB - Fireworks

Hi all!

What a terrible tie I have been having with my computer!  Talk about uncooperative for all things photo related which is huge part of what I use it for!  Not sure how I will get it fixed.  Nothing I have tried has worked so far.

BUT I did find some crude work arounds to finally get my project posted for the current Bitten By the Bug Challenge - fireworks!  This is page 2 that goes with last weeks page 1 of pics from Fourth of July last year.

We have a great time in our town on the Fourth.  It starts off with a Soap Box Derby Race a block from our house, next hubby rides in one of the engines in the parade put on by the Volunteer Fire Dept. and then our neighbor has a huge party with bounce houses, tons of food, lots of friends and a magnificent fireworks display at the end.  This year Hollyn actually drove the Volunteer Firefighter derby car in the race!  Can't wait to scrap all those pics - she LOVED it!

The 3 fireworks cuts and the hills are from Cricut cartridges.

Enhanced with Stickles of course!

The kids on the hills are from Kadoodle Bug Designs - I thought they were SO cute!

Here is the full 2 pages together.  I hope y'all can join our challenge!  Be sure to stop over on the BBTB blog and check out what the other DTs made!

BBTB - Stars

Hi all!

Quick post for y'all this week as it's very late and I have a busy week ahead!  Spent the last week up in NH meeting my little grandson so I am up late getting this posted in time!

Our challenge this week on Bitten By the Bug is STARS!  I have page 1 of a 2 page layout for y'all, page 2 will be coming next week:

Pics are bad this week as I lost my camera SD card at my sons AND I can't get Photoshop to open to edit them either!

These are pics from last year's 4th of July - these are from the parade portion.  Hubby is a volunteer firefighter and was riding in the parade.  We went with a big group of friends and beforehand the girls took over decorating the boy scouts' float.

This was such a fun layout to put together!  The Uncle Sam cut is from Scrapping Bug Designs - she had a GREAT sale last week and I picked up several things.  The rest are from Cricut cartridges.

BBTB - Twins

Hi all!

Pezza and I are in for an extremely exciting week - we are making the long, nerve-wracking drive up north to see Drake (my oldest), Dianne (DIL) and finally meet my little grandbaby, Julian!  He is 9 months old already!  It is incredibly tough being so far away but I know they are happy living up there.  Y'all will probably be seeing future scrapbook pages featuring this little guy!

This week's challenge on Bitten By the Bug is twins - you must include 2 of something in your project.  How easy is that to come up with something?  Pretty WIDE OPEN so come join us!  I ended up not going with my original idea when I spied this cut while scrolling through for something else:

So cute and SO EASY - it is all one cut from the Picturesque cartridge.  I decided to jazz it up a bit though by embellishing the 2 dragonflies.  Here is how I made them so incredibly sparkly.

When you load the cut into Design Space you will have 2 items - the blue background and the green dragonfly cut out.  I duplicated the dragonfly cut out so I had 2 of them.

Next I carefully snipped the 2 dragonflies off of the border by hand - quick and easy.

To make them so sparkly I first stamped the wings with my Versamark ink pad, then I used a dry brush to brush on Primary Elements Artist Pigment Powders.  If you are not familiar with these you need to be!  The colors are vibrant and beautiful. In addition, they have mica sparkle mixed in that is out of this world.  I used several colors on the wings.  I sprayed them with a product called Workable Fixative to make sure the powder did not rub back off.  (You can also use hair spray.)  Then I used Stickles (color is Patina) along the bodies.  I ran the background through an embossing folder for added interest.  Glue the dragonflies in place and add ribbon through the hole and you have a fantastic gift tag!

Be sure to stop by the Bitten By the Bug blog to see what the other design team members have created - they always amaze me!  Then join the challenge and post YOUR design for us to see!

BBTB Garden Challenge

Hi all!

I am happy to report the rain stopped last week.  However, it is already back this week :P  We dragging our butts into the last week of school with much kicking and screaming (by both of us truth be told!)  Talk to me again in July - I'll be ready for her to go back!

Our theme over at Bitten By the Bug for this week is Garden - so many possibilities with this one!  I had a few pictures of Pezza back from 2012 harvesting veggies in our garden and this was the perfect opportunity.

I love the grid look of Project Life but not the cards and pocket page protectors so I like to mimic the look.  I designed this layout completely in Design Space using 3 cartridges - Freshly Picked, Ribbons & Rosettes and Something To Celebrate.  Here's a few tips in case you don't know about them for doing layouts in Design Space.

1. When you open your new project click on Set Canvas on the left hand side.
2. Scroll down until you see the choice Scrapbook Layouts and click on that.
3. Look on the right hand side - the last tab says Canvas - click on that.
4. Now you can choose 1 or 2 pages, 12 x 12 or a custom size and even play with the background color.

The Freshly Picked cartridge had such a huge variety of cuts just perfect for a garden project including quite a few cute titles - this is the one Pezza decided on.  Isn't the little worm cute!

And the adorable little insects!

We spent a lot of time watering so there was even a faucet sprayer!

And plenty of snails and caterpillars....

One of the other things we do every spring/summer/fall is foster tiny rescue kittens and this year is no different.  Here is a much bigger Pezza with Little Emma.  We have 3 other babies and a momma cat too.

Isn't she just too cute!?

I hope you join in our challenge with a garden project of your own.  Head over to the Bitten By the Bug blog to see the great projects done by the rest of the DT members!