Cherry on Top Award.

I woke up this morning to a wonderful surprise - my hilarious (she really is wickedly funny!!!), creative friend I met through SVGCuts has sent me this award.  I've gotten to know her in the last little while, and found out that she has similar movie interests, her kids are about the same age as mine, and she loves scrapbooking - wow, I probably would be such great friends if we lived close.  I never knew that I would meet so many wonderful people when I started blogging.  Don't you just wish that you could meet them??? Thank you so much Bee (Belinda Brown) - you've made my day!  You could check her awesome blog here.

According to her rules - I'm supposed to state 3 things that I love.  Hmmm...  I never knew that, but here goes:  my family, my scrapbooking stuff and my tea.  I have to have a cup of tea (or two) on a daily basis.  These are things that keep me going.  And yes, if there's a 4th option, it would be chocolate.  I was never really into chocolate until kids came along - and I discovered that it really does help to reduce my stress levels!

Another rule - post a picture I love: 
This was taken on the day I came from the hospital after giving birth to my daugher the day before.  I always wanted a girl - and it was a girl!!! Now my happy family is complete :)

Now I pass my award on to 5 great people I met through SVGCuts.
1. Cely (http://creatingincarolina.blogspot.com/).  She's got a challenge going over at her blog right now till Sept 15.  You need to use one or more of her SVG files to create a card.  If you are the winner, you get a collection of your choice from SVGCuts.  I really need to work on this one.  Go check her blog out - she's wonderful gal!
2. Cheryl (http://dragonflydesigns58.blogspot.com/)
She's a crazy SVGCuts fan!  She's on top of it when it comes to making a card with a new SVGCuts collection.  She makes new creations all the time, and it's so fun to get some inspirations for these files. 
3. Celeste (http://dragonflydesigns58.blogspot.com/
Another big SVGCuts fan - she's just amazing.  She makes tons of cards for the troops, does fundraising with her work, she makes journals for the patients...  She sure knows how to keep her Cricut busy!  Way to go, Celeste!
4. Cheryl (http://cafexpressions.blogspot.com/)
She's truly talented as well - and makes really cute SVGs.  She's done a lot of crafting, too - so go check her out!
5.  Reets (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001518410659&v=info#!/profile.php?id=100001518410659&v=wall)  not really a blog (I don't think that she has a blog, but here's her Facebook site) - She's so genuine, so warm - you just have to love her.  She's gone through a great deal and has overcome all this because of her family, friends and crafting.  Be sure to check out all the wonderful things she's created.

Dull Cricut Blade? Don't buy replacement yet!

As I was cutting all my stuff on Cricut, I was losing patience watching all my beautiful cardstock gone to waste because of my old, dull, blade.  It would start cutting, and then it would tear and make the paper bunch up.  I didn't have any replacements on hand, and weather being so gloomy and rainy, there was no way I was going to take my 3 kids in the car to get a new blade.

Then it occurred to me that if I can sharpen a knife, why wouldn't I be able to do that with a Cricut blade?  I took the blade, ran it through the sharpening block just a few times and look at the difference:

I would recommend doing it only a few times, as doing too much would alter the length of the blade - and that would most likely create problems in setting the depth of the blade.  However, in the meantime, I do have 3 other dull ones - I'm going to pull all of them out and sharpen them before I decide to take my 3 kids out to buy a blade.

Something my best friend made for me.

I've been madly trying to work on my new project and it's taking a long time.  I've really noticed that I have slowed down in my number of posts I make and I feel that I may lose my loyal followers attention.  I guess that quality of my project is very important to me and I want to do a good job on it.  So, I thought that I would share something different in the next few upcoming posts.

This is not really a papercraft, nor something I made.  However, it was made for me from someone I consider as my best friend and something so pretty, I just had to share it with you.  Although you guys are paper crafters, I myself, wished that I can sew and I'm sure that some of you can sew to appreciate the detail put in to them.

This special person is my mom.  I've been living with her for the past few months and while I do my papercrafting, she does sewing - namely, bag making.  She only started this a couple of months ago, and she's made over 10 bags!  She's given me 4 of them!  I'm going to be taking the next few blog posts to share some special creations that she's made for me!  I am stocked up in bags - I just need special places to go now! 

My first one to show you is probably my favorite one.  It's made with black linen fabric, with inside cotton designer fabric purchased from Stitchsteals.  It's reversible, and has a pretty flower with ribon that can be taken off - not that I would ever take it off!  I love the way it hangs, I just love how much it fits inside, everything about it is so me.  The person modelling for me is my mom, by the way :)

Just because cards.

Oh, when does my busy life ever slow down?  I'm sure you all can relate, but I feel like I can never catch up.  I perhaps procrastinate too much.  Maybe it's Facebook and Creating the Hive, and all the cool shopping sites...  maybe it's my parent's great food in the kitchen (I live with my parents temporary) that I get pulled there more often than to stay put in my craft chair.  Perhaps it is all the painting, packing, organizing that I'm doing.  Or, life is just simply hectic with 3 kids.  Nevertheless, I managed to put together two simple cards today.  And, I just started on another SVGCuts project tonight.  It may take a while, so don't get too excited just yet!  I hope that all of you are well :)

I just learned how to make these 3D flowers out from a flower shape and a circle cut 4 times each.  Ink the edges, crumple up the sides, take the flower shaped cuts and fold them in half and layer it over another, and glue them on to the bottom (circle pieces on top of each other) and then I added button in the middle.

Meet me at the Creating the Hive!

Have you heard of the new social networking site for all crafters, Creating the Hive?

I just created an account with them today, and spent good part of my night browsing the site.  Instead of blog hopping, and finding cool blogs on your own, you can eliminate all that hard work by searching people by different categories -  for example in my case, papercrafting, card-making, rubber-stamping.. You can set the account so that any new blog posts, too, will be uploaded onto that site.  You can follow people and comment on them, you can view how many people have viewed your posts,  and you can see your rankings compared to other people belonging to the same interest. 

What's different about this site is that you get points for every activity that occurs on your account.  Whether you create an account, update your profile, make a connection, leave comments, upload blog posts, or refer someone to the site - you get points for them.  The more points you have, you would be place higher in the popular rankings and may be featured on the "Featured Members" box. 

It seems like a fun place to hang out - actually, hate to admit, way too fun that it may be another procrastination factor for me...

Click here to view my hive or click on the side button to create an account.  Looking forward to meeting YOU at the hive!

Another pop-up lever card.

So, the Echo Park papers that I used for the previous card was given to me from Crop Chocolate for being in their Chocolatier program.  You sign up and are given $15 Crop Credit per quarter, and you can use that to purchase any "treat" that you see on their site.  The only requirement is that you submit a project using the product that you purchased.  You then post it in their forum, and then you get another $15 for the next quarter...  get the idea?

Anyway, I created a simple card using the same card base, but using their cardstock stickers that was included to submit as my project. 

 

"Celebrate" Pop-up lever card.

It's hard to believe that we're nearing the end of summer vacation.  I hope that it has been a great summer for you.  We have about 3 rooms left to paint, so we are starting to see the end, and we're soo excited.  Then we are off to friend's cabin on the weekend, which is the highlight of our summer.

Anyway, I would like to share my latest project for SVGCuts.com.  This is combining two of their popular SVG card collections together - Premium Pop-up Card Collection and Breezy Backyard Lever Card Collection.

Here's a link to the SVG Cuts blog for the detailed information on the cut file used and the instructions.
http://svgcuts.com/blog/2010/08/22/thienlys-spot-celebrate-pop-up-lever-card/

Hope you enjoy this.  Now, the question is - who should I send this to?