BBTB2 - Sweet Challenge

Hi all!

We have a new challenge up for Bitten By the Bug 2 - Sweet.  This can be interpreted in several ways - sweet treats for birthdays, sweet designs for a baby, etc.

I chose to make a birthday tag with this fantastic ice cream cut.

Both the tag and the ice cream came from the Sweet Treats cartridge.  I love the tags on that cartridge!  I used the current card sketch on the Tuesday Morning sketches for my tag front.  I dug out my old SU corner rounding punch for the corners of the polka dot paper I put on top of the tag base.  Three little brown glittered skittles and a big brown bow balanced it perfectly I think!  Pink and brown has always been one of my favorite color combinations.

I gave the whipped cream on top an extra special touch by covering it with white liquid pearls and some pink microbeads.

When I was making the first tag I came across this little party hat on Sweet Treats and decided I should make a second tag as well with the same layout.  I envision this one being for a boy's gift so I wasn't sure I wanted to put the brown bow on it - haven't decided what I will put instead.....perhaps some curling ribbon when I add it to the package.

I hope you'll join in the BBTB2 challenge and show us YOUR projects!

I was also inspired by the following challenges:

• Tuesday Morning sketches
• Ooh La La Creations - Birthdays
• Tag You're It 
• Aud Sentiments - Birthday
• Southern Girls - Favorite Color Combo
• Through the Purple Haze - Use a tag
• Shopping Our Stash - Punches or dies

BBTB - Easter Challenge

Hi all!

It's Easter time over on the Bitten By the Bug 2 Challenge blog!  If I were really good I'd have some adorable little Easter projects for ya to give to Pezza and the grandbabies but nope!  How I have less time now than I did when she was little is beyond me but I suppose I do volunteer for way too much.  I also don't have a housekeeper the way I did back in the day :P

Anyway, instead I did a layout of Pezza with last year's Easter pics:

Oh how I do love completing a good 2 page spread!

I love the pics on this page because of the great action sequence I somehow managed to catch when she reached up for an egg that was too high - her poor sad little face!

I couldn't help but include all these pics - she tends to take herself way too seriously when I pull out the camera which makes it hard to get good natural facial expressions.  For some reason on this morning she was relaxed and hamming it up.

I used several other challenges as inspiration for this page and one in particular really spoke to me - it was a picture challenge at Stampin' Royalty:

I really loved the color scheme - mostly kraft and off white with greenery, glittery turquoise and hints of pink and yellow.

Of course I had to include a bunny cut - this one comes from Kate's ABCs - probably one of my MOST favorite Cricut Cartridges.

The glitter in the inspiration picture made me decide to pull out some glitter paper I have had for at LEAST 5 years and never used.  I do love the way the paper looks and it cut well in the Cricut but the back is a very slick almost plastic feel and I am skeptical about it sticking to what it's glued on to for the long haul.  I guess we'll see......

One of the things I love doing when I make a grid style design is to use card sketches for some of them.  I used more glitter paper and even remembered to pull out my Cuttlebug and embossing folders!  Yay!

 I went over the embossing with a kraft colored chalk Dew Drop ink pad to enhance it.  I would have liked a pink glitter paper here but no luck :)

I hope some of you will join us for our challenge at BBTB2!

I went through lots of challenge blogs this week looking for inspiration - I miss participating in all the challenges all over the interwebs.  I remember when there were just a handful of them - now there are dozens and dozens!  I was inspired by the following:

• Stampin Royalty - Inspiration picture
• Tuesday Morning Sketches (I remember when this challenge started - so happy for a chance to use one of their sketches.)
• Die Cuttin' Divas - sketch
• Shopping Our Stash - Tie one on - use ribbon, lace or twine
• Cuttlebug Mania - Easter Bunny
• Creative Moments - Easter
• Crafty Gals Corner - 3+ layer

BBTB2 - Tree challenge.

Hi all!

Well I am back to posting after a bit of a break.  I am still on the design team for Bitten By the Bug 2 and this week's challenge is trees in honor of Arbor Day.

I wanted to get these beach pics scrapped from a few years ago so I went with a palm tree.

I loved this title SVG cut I found at Treasure Box Designs.  The flower accents came from the Sweet Treats Cricut cartridge and the flip flops & sunglasses came from the Pack Your Bags Cricut cartridge.

The palm tree is an SVG cut file from Kadoodle Bug Designs - I really loved the little zig zag accent going up the trunk so I just had to have it.  My little Crabbie is from the Create A Critter Cricut cartridge - This particular trip was to Outer Banks, NC and Pezza and I were obsessed with waking up really early to walk to the beach and watch the dozens and dozens of little crabs pop up out of their holes and scurry around on the beach.

My second page includes a couple more of the flower accents as well as a shell from the Life's A Beach cartridge and a border from the Ribbons & Rosettes cartridge.

I love doing beach themed layouts mostly because I love the colors.  Perhaps I need to incorporate these fun beachy colors in my house!

I hope you will come join in the challenge over on BBTB2!

I am also entering this layout in the following challenge:

• 2 Crafty Critter Crazies - critter

BBTB2 Challenge: Ornament or Holiday Symbol

Hi all!

Is everyone buried in holiday shenanigans like me???  We have 8 birthdays and our anniversary in our immediate families all within a month (or much closer) to Christmas so it is extra insanity around here!  My oldest grandson will be 2 next week so I am making his some Thomas the Tank Engine cookies on top of the usual slew of Christmas cookies - if I make it to New Years it will be a miracle!  Hahaha!

This week's challenge on Bitten By the Bug 2 is to use a Christmas or other winter holiday symbol on a project.

I hand out Starbucks gift cards at my daughter's school so I make little gift card holders using a cut called Card Holder with insert from Fabulous Finds.  If you want to make one the width of the Holder is 5.75" and the insert is 3.1"  She really liked this little happy face ornament from Simply Charmed.  I have 6 more to make.  Glad I can cut them out so quickly thanks to my Cricut!

Head over to BBTB2 and see the other amazing projects from the design team and then make something to enter in our challenge!

Something new - Chainmaille!

Hi all!

Did everyone have a good Thanksgiving and stuff yourselves full of good food?  I know we did!  I have a different sort of post for you today.  I have a ridiculous amount of hobbies/interests other than paper crafts so today I wanted to share one of my latest ones - Chainmaille jewelry.

Here are the pieces that started it - Christmas items I am making as gifts.

First up - Christmas trees.  I had initially thought I would make these and the wreath below as pendants but Once I made them both I decided they are too big so they will be ornaments.  The tree to the left I made to see how a smaller version would look and may still make a few of them as pendants.

And the wreath....

To the right is my attempt at a smaller version of the wreath that could work as a pendant but it is too small to add the little gold bow.  I also used the same pattern of rings to make a slightly larger pendant to see how I liked it.

This is the same pattern as the wreath but is a bracelet.

Pezza recently got a very fancy white and blue dress for the holidays and wanted jewelry to go with it so I made these - a bracelet and a pendant.

I had not finished her bracelet yet...

This is a bracelet I will be giving my mom for Christmas.

And finally - matching pendants for me and Pez.  I have been having quite a bit of fun working on these.  It makes for a nice project to do sitting in front of the TV in the evenings.  What do y'all think?

BBTB Challenge - Thanks!

Hi all!

Are y'all as ready for some Thanksgiving feasting as I am?  We will actually be doing two dinners - one at my in-laws on Thursday and then a second one at my house Saturday with our traditional family fare for my son, daughter in law and grandbabies.

Our challenge this week on Bitten By the Bug 2 is to make a Thanksgiving themed item using the word Thanks or Thankful.  One of my closest friends is heading up our Teacher Appreciation committee at school so I have been helping her each month with different things for our teachers and staff.  This month we are giving them all a pumpkin pie so I made the tags that will go on them:

I needed to cut 65 of them so I needed to keep it fairly simple!  I think it turned out pretty cute!  Stop by the BBTB2 blog to see what the other team members created and then post your own project to our linky!  Have a great holiday!

BBTB - Holiday Nature

Hi all!

Well, Halloween is done so onward we go - and yes I am skipping Thanksgiving and going straight to Christmas!  I don't really need any Thanksgiving stuff but I do need Christmas cards!  I have 3 for this week's challenge on Bitten By the Bug 2 - holiday images from nature.

I LOVE Christmas stuff mostly because it's the only time of the year (except Mardi Gras of course) where the more sparkle you have the better!  In light of that I began this set of cards by mixing up some super sparkly mist using Splash of Color Primary Elements powder, gum arabic and water.  I misted lightly over a stencil - a combination of green and gold for 2 and blue and gold for the center one.

I wanted to keep these clean and simple so the only thing I added were Cricut cuts and a simple stamped sentiment.  You can really see the sparkle!

I only used 2 of the layers for this snowflake - again to keep it simple.

I just love that shimmer!

Be sure to head over to the BBTB2 blog to check out the awesome projects from the other designers and then make something yourself to link to our challenge!