The Perfect Sentiment will celebrate it's one year Anniversary/Birthday from October 10th-30th, 2012. They will have four different challenges for you to participate in along with a blog hop for even more chances to win prizes.

I love challenges, tho I don't seem to get my projects entered very often, they give me inspiration. I am certainly make an effort to follow the blog hop and challenges.

I have a Gypsy. I've had it for about three years. Seems like forever, because I have never figured out how to use it, it didn't come with instructions. I went to a weekend crop at which there was to be a class on the basics. Class never took place because the one teaching wanted all of the Gypsys updated. Not possible since we didn't have internet. So no class. I did figure out how to turn it on and how to link my cartridges.
Fast forward to this past week. I was blog hopping when I ran across a challenge that interested me, but you had to use the Gypsy to enter. I made a comment about how pretty her card was but I couldn't do that. She e-mailed me and offered to teach me how to use my Gypsy. I jumped at the chance.
This is where I first saw the window card I wanted to make.

This is the card I ended up making.

Thanks to Kathi (who is now a friend), I have made a card using my Gypsy and a window card at that. The card she was walking me through had one item in the window. Since I'm working on a patterned paper swap and I needed another card, I decided to make the window card for the swap. I was using Christmas paper, so it had to be a Christmas card. I won't tell you that it took me eight hours just to get the foundation of the card cut out. I had a horrible time getting the two boxes together and not have my Cricut cut both of them or neither of them. When I finally got a foundation all in one piece, the rest was easy. And I have two layers instead of one. 

I would like you to go over to Kathi's blog, Design Originals and see what she has going on. You will also find a link to The Paper Cabana challenge blog. I missed the window card challenge, but I'll be ready next time. 

Thank You Kathi, you rock!

Double Embossing

I learned something new this month. Well, I learned lots of new things this month, but I'm only going to discuss one in this post. Using two embossing folders on a background.
I first embossed my background cardstock using SU's Elegant Lines folder, I lightly went over the embossing with yellow. I then re-imbossed the cardstock using Cuttlebug's Styled Flowers folder. This one I used the orange and green to highlight the embossing. The butterflies are cut using SU's Beautiful Wings folder.
I think my card is very pretty, but I still have a long way to go to perfect this technique. One thing that would help immensely is having folders with more open designs. I'm going to have to try this with the dotted swiss folder. Hmmm
Thank you for dropping by. Take Care

Black & White

At SSSD, August color of the month was black, white and grey. This month in another swap,we make a Masculine card in black & white.I went off the deep end making black & white cards. There is one a couple of posts down that I made using scraps for a challenge. The post below this, I used black & purple. Oh, that's not black & white is it. And this month, for a Feminine card, white on white.  Ok, ok, back to black, white and grey

This is the card I made for the August color of the month swap.  At our SU club, one of the members brought in her project for us to make and it was this card, only not B&W. It is a beautiful card and not too hard to make. Just gotta get those fold lines straight. This card, by the way, takes a full sheet of 12 x 12 patterned or solid light weight card stock  The patterned paper I used is S.E.I. White elegance. Its a beautiful paper.





This is the inside of the card.The butterflies are punched from a sparkly black which was in my scrap drawer along with the grey paper I used. The grey paper is textured. The punch and stamp are SU.








My card for September, Masculine in black & white.

I created the background paper on my computer. I did the background paper and sentiment using Word.I don't remember where I got the image. It is a digi and the drive I had it on gave up the ghost, so I no longer have it. Its a fun digi and is perfect for paper piecing.

Now that I have discovered what one can do with black & white...  I love the elegance of the first card and the fun of the second card.

Thanks for stopping by,  Take Care

Fall card

Fall is almost here, know what that means? HALLOWEEN! I don't normally make cards for Halloween, or anything else for that matter. However, for some reason, I'm in the mood. Maybe it comes from doing the black & white cards last month and this month.

A Yahoo group I have recently joined is challenging the members to make a Fall card.Now I don't know if a Halloween card qualifies as a Fall card or not... And besides, how much more Fall can one get than Halloween?

I dug into my scrap drawer and came up with all the papers except for the card foundation. I cut the tree out with my Cricut and the October 31st cartridge, the pumpkins are from a digi I purchased a year or so ago and the bats and moon are cut from a QuicKutz die "haunted house". I started out wanting to use the haunted house, but when I cut the tree, I scrapped the house. Perhaps I will use it on another project.
Besides posting this card on the SBP blog, I'm going to post it on the HIMCR for the Super Scraps Saturday challenge.

I apologize for the picture being so faded out, I scanned it several times and took several pictures. My card just isn't photogenic.It looks a lot better in person.
Thanks for stopping by
Take Care

Using Those Scraps

Over at Hiding in My Craft Room, Laurie has posted her Saturday challenge. This week it is HIMCR #62 Super Scraps Saturday. 

I am entering this card in that challenge. I made the card because I wanted to see what the pinwheel card would look like in Black & White. As soon as I decided to do B & W (which was SSSD's Color of the Month for August), I discovered that I didn't have any black & white patterned paper. (The next time Joanne's has a paper sale, I'm buying black patterned paper.) I pulled out my black scrap folder and found some small pieces of B&W. It was fun trying to get all the squares even when cutting around "holes" in the paper. But I managed. Except for the foundation, it is all from my scrap drawer. Now all I need to do is find someone to send the card to 
So go on over to Hiding in My Craft Room and see all the cards made from "scraps".
Thanks for dropping by. Please leave a comment, so I can visit your blog and see what wonderful things you have been making.
Take Care