First Cricut project

For this layout of my daughter's first birthday, I used the Graphically Speaking cartridge for the "One" and the "little". The rest of the title is done in rubons, QK Storybook, and the "P" is from the Fiesta alphabet, slightly modified. Balloons and tiny crown are QK. "One" embellished with rubons, doodling, and bling; stickles also used on other embellishments.



On page two of the layout, the crown was cut from the Cricut cartridge, Home Decor, presents are QK and the little shoes that match those Cyndi wore, are from the QK cookie cutter baby shapes; doodling, stickles, and bling.

Black Friday Rocks!

Did you go out Black Friday shopping today??? Holly and I hit Walmart about 8:30 this morning and believe it or not, we were through the checkout by 9:30! I got some awesome bargains and the best part -- ALL the Christmas shopping for the grandkids is DONE! Woohoo!! Of course, you have to live in a town of 5,000 for this to happen. LOL!! It's great on days like today, but every other day it's not always so great when it's the ONLY store (literally) in town.

So, my big bargain of the day--I bought the Cricut Expression for $199 PLUS, it came with TWO cartridges! Now don't go dissin' me -- I'm not being disloyal to my beloved QuicKutz ;) and I will never give up my QK tools and dies. I love all my QK alphabets and there isn't a single one of the Cricut alphas that I like (sorry Cricut alpha lovers LOL), but I do like some of the shapes and features that are not available in QK. Happy Christmas to me!! Thank you, honey. ;)

What bargains did you snag today, either in-store or online?

Caramel Apple Cheesecake

Oh my gosh! This is sooooo good. :) Even Randy said it's good enough to make again and he doesn't like cheesecake....well, he says he doesn't. I didn't tell him this was cheesecake, I told it was Caramel Apple "Pie". Shhhh....don't tell him, k? ;)

Caramel Apple Cheesecake
1 20-oz can apple pie filling
1 9-in. graham cracker crust
16 oz. (2 8-oz. pkg) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/4 cup caramel topping
12 pecan halves
2 tablespoons chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350. Remove 1/2 cup pie filling and set aside. Spoon remaining filling into pie crust.

In medium bowl, beat together cream cheese, sugar and vanilla, till smooth. Add eggs and beat well. Pour over apple filling. Bake for 35 minutes, or until center is set. Cool on wire rack.

Combine reserved pie filling and caramel topping in small saucepan. Heat over moderate heat until soft, but not hot. Spoon over cooled cheesecake and spread evenly. Garnish edge with pecan halves and sprinkle top with chopped pecans. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

ENJOY! We sure did. :)
recipe pictured below

They picked me again! :)

Notice this week's new header photo.....this scrapbook page has been chosen as the featured Thanksgiving layout for the Scrapbooks Etc. online newsletter this week! What a thrill to open my email and find this page in the featured layout. It's one of my favorites. :)

How are your plans coming along for your Thanksgiving? I had a very productive day yesterday, getting the dinner rolls made, pumpkin pie is done and this year the new dessert recipe I tried is Caramel Apple Cheesecake. Doesn't it sound -- and look -- delish?

In addition to the baking and preparing for tomorrow's big dinner -- mind you, it will be just the two of us this year, which is fine, but I still enjoy doing up the whole turkey dinner with all the trimmings! -- I'm also redoing the living room. I got the ceiling and trim taped off yesterday in between pies and rolls, and will get to painting today....I hope. I would love to have it all done before I put up the tree, so that may have to wait for another week, but we'll see how I do and if I can make quick work of this redo. ;)

Have a wonderful Wednesday!!

Butterflies

Quickutz really outdid themselves with the new butterfly dies this release. The border is fab, and the large die and QK Club die match back to the border so they are all must haves, if you ask me. :) The large die is doubly cool because you can use the inner wing cutouts as a completely separate butterfly in itself. Very nice! In addition to these new dies, I also used the nesting squares for the journal block and Blossom mini and Rollerskate mini for the title. Embellished with stickles and markers, the border comes alive right there on my page! Papers are from the Off Beat Quickitz available from Scrapbuggy, which also includes the new birds die (not used on this page). TFL

Altered magnets

These magnets came attached to the front of our new phone book as advertisements for businesses I will never use. I love getting little freebies like this and always save them "just in case". These immediately made it to my scrap room and became much cuter fridge magnets using the November QuicKitz, Off Beat, and the new Storybook alphabet. ;) Also used Biography, Diesel Classic and Diesel Classic Shadows; and for the smaller magnet, the ribbon slot heart QK Club die.

The top one is 4x4, the smaller one is 2 1/2x 3 1/2

When the girls were kids I would open all the cans and food packaging from the bottom then put the clean cans in their play kitchen. This is a pop-top can (from mandarin oranges) that I opened from the bottom using a safety-opener (no sharp edges), a scraplift from Gina/Scrapalina. I love her spin on my old idea. The baby stamp, isn't it cute!!, was a RAK from Gail. Thank you, Gail! I used the Scrapbuggy November Quickitz, Pop Fashion, to make a new label, filled it with wrapped candies then reattached the bottom with super glue.

Funky new QK owl

For this page of fat little baby Gracie ;) I used the Pop Fashion papers by Pink Paislee. It is one of this month's kits by Scrapbuggy. The new releases by QuicKutz include THREE owls! I really had no idea I would be that interested in owls, but they are popular now for whatever reason and I couldn't say no. This funky little guy is almost an ugly-cute, but I just love him. Title font is Diesel Grand.

The hedgehog was too cute to pass up. I really had no idea how I'd use him, but here he is the perfect touch for my "I miss you" card. The baby owl inside is made from the B - O and 4 from the Aquarius 4x8 alphabet, a scraplift from the ScrapMart blog. Isn't it adorable? This card will go to my scrapping buddy, Grace. The profile butterfly is this month's QuicKutz Club die, the font is the new Storybook (cute as can be!) and inside I used the tree border and the new Rev branches die.

Loving the new QK releases!!!

Here are just a few of them. These dies are so much fun. I love all of them! (and I can't always say that LOL)

For this page of my granddaughter, Olivia, I used the beautiful new Rev butterfly. The title was cut with the Silhouette using the computer font called Storybook. It is the computer match to the new 4x8 QuicKutz alphabet, also called Storybook. (Except for the "O" - which is a different font.) I also used the cc baby shapes crown, and stickles.

This is my daughter, Sally, with baby Olivia.....screaming baby Olivia. LOL She could be happy as all get out and the second someone got out a camera, she would begin to scream. EVERY SINGLE TIME! LOL Which is why Sally is laughing. It was uncanny how the appearance of a camera would change Olivia's mood in the blink of an eye!

On this layout I've used the new Rev birds, branches and tree border. I love these! The birds' wings make perfect leaves. Title is done in Diesel and Dragonfly.

Sneak Peek!

Here's a little peek at the current project I'm working on. This is the first page of my oldest daughter's baby book, which isn't quite finished and which is why I haven't posted in a bit. I have just a couple more pages to do and will post a slideshow when it's done. After all the baby books I've done for the grandkids, it feels good to be scrapping pics of my own babies now. :)

I'm using the Nana's Nursery, Baby Girl stack for this one. So cute, and just retro enough to fit the pictures from the 70s of my little girls. For this page I trimmed down the 12x12 paper and cut the "sparkle" shapes from the scraps and put them back onto the page. With the x-acto knife, I cut into the curvy design of the paper and tucked the photo behind it. QuicKutz used on this page are Maddie Anne for the title with matching computer font for the journaling, 2x2 birds, and the journaling tag from vellum is a Nestabilities die by Spellbinders.

SRW Friends....

Have you been able to access the board today? I've been getting the 'cannot display page' message all morning. Is it just me or is it the board???

ETA: Finally it's letting me in. Wonder what that was about.

My newest toy

REVIEW: GLUE GLIDER PRO

I had been debating for a good long while about getting an ATG but had yet to be impressed by any of the ones on the market. I was leaning heavily toward the Glue Glider Max, by Glue Arts, but it was still not quite what I wanted, so I kept putting off ordering it. Most all of them out there are too big and clunky, not cute (and we all know cuteness is a factor in scrapping toys....er....I mean tools ;)) they all use 1/2" tapes, unless you get an adapter or some such nonsense, and the tape cartridges had to be threaded through the machine, not to mention I wasn't pleased with the price of them. The Glue Glider Max at least had pop in cartridges, so that was a big plus. However, I have small hands with carpal tunnel in both of them so the size was a negative, I had to have something cute, that's a given, and I use 1/4" tapes. Thus my dilemma!!!

Then a couple of months ago I got the Glue Arts newsletter with the most wonderful news! They LISTENED!!!! :) I was so excited about their new ATG I pre-ordered the bundle (gun with cartridge, plus 3 other cartridges) right away. I'm so happy with their new adhesive tape gun I want to share it with you. It's not at all top-heavy or clunky. I highly recommend it if you have been looking, like me, but unhappy with what you've found. This is the perfect solution to all those dilemmas! And the coolest thing about the pop in cartridges is that you can switch mid-cartridge if you choose to change the type of adhesive you're using. Yay!

Check it out at HappynScrappin. Her prices are great and her customer service can't be beat.

Small & comfortable to hold: check!
1/4" adhesive tape: check!
pop-in cartridges: check!
no threading: check!
Cuteness factor: double check! It's PINK & GREEN!!!
Price: VERY reasonable, and worth every penny!

Note: Blogger is still not fixed. It's been a couple of weeks now and I'm not the only one experiencing this problem. I've always used photobucket to upload my images but suddenly blogger chops them off. I discovered that uploading directly from my harddrive works without chopping them off, so until this gets fixed, I'll do it that way.

Tag - I'm it! Thanks Lea ;)

How well do you think you know me? Are you surprised by any of these ......

Seven Random Facts About Me

1 I worked as a transcriptionist for over 25 years -- in various positions and agencies

2 I can't stand to be touched by feet, but especially feet with socks

3 I don't know how to swim except maybe enough to save myself if I had to

4 I'm a Gemini

5 I HATE SNAKES!!!!!!!

6 I've never been farther east than Colorado

7 I love redecorating

Hope you haven't already been tagged for this one, guys. I'm tagging Jayne, Darla, Cindy, Karen, Gia, Michele, and Cynthia! Post 7 random facts on your blog then tag 7 other blogger buddies to post their facts!

Have fun!

A few cards

A few cards for some peeps who are in need of a hug and a good thought to get through some tough times. For the trees, I've used leftover circles from the centers of letters, triangles, and a cloud. Just playing around with some new ideas for the cute little HL exclusive tree, and the QK tree trunks.