I'm a Guest Designer

It has been a VERY long week, but it has been a lot of fun. Between being off for spring break and all the holiday celebrating, it will be hard to get back into the swing of things. This week, however, I am so excited about my guest designing spot on Use It Tuesday! The Anything Goes challenge is definitely a a favorite of mine. At first I thought it would be fitting to create something that reflects who I am as a crafter and I think I hit it right on the head with this Glitter Panda shaker easel card. I have been holding on to this adorable panda stamp for quite some time and this seemed like the perfect chance. I dipped into my extensive stash of paper for this one and then used my pearls, glitter and ribbon too. I even created the flower using a punch instead of my go to Cricut cartridges. Then, I needed to make an Easter card for my mother-in-law and fell in love with that one! So, I decided to post the Easter card on Use it Tuesday and here it is:

There are a few techniques I want to explain with this one, so I will create another post to explain how I made it, but wanted to include it here today :)


Panda hugs!
J-
Glitter Panda

Check out my posts on how to create an easel card and my video on how to create a shaker card to learn the techniques I used here!

Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! If you are celebrating, I hope your day is full of fun and excitement!! We're going green here to celebrate. Although the holiday is today, my card was actually ready last week and is now finding its home in IRELAND! I knew I was going to make a card to celebrate my Year of Holiday Cards, and always love when I have a fabulous use for my cards. This one was great because I sent it to my brother-in-law's family in Ireland!!

I don't have the recipe for this one because I had to make it in a hurry, but you can find the recipe for my easel cards here. I used the shaker card process as well for the top layer. This was nice and easy because I used tiny shamrock die cuts from the Cricut Designer's Calendar cartridge inside (all shamrocks on the card, including the cutout are the same cut at different sizes), so the foam tape could have small gaps without the filling falling out. For embellishment on the top card, I hand stitched the card with my white gel pen, and added green Recollections crystals. On the bottom card, I added rainbow ribbon with green glitter ribbon over it (both are taped down under the layer), and stamped it with my Studio G stamp that has a horseshoe with the words Luck O' the Irish all the way around.

Panda Hugs!
-J

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Sentimental Sundays Challenge #93 - Go Green or RECYCLE!

Simon Says Stamp - A Bit O' Green

Use it Tuesday Challenge #27 - Green! - (used my go to Recollections paper, my crystals from my stash, and Offray rainbow ribbon I have had for 100 years!)

Happy Leap Day!

Since today was a rare occurrence, it seems appropriate that it was full of surprises! The best surprise of the day happened right at the end of the school day. My last class of the day is a workshop format and things are always happening all at the same time. Near the end of class, a friend/colleague walked in with a "delivery." Since today was not a special day in general (no birthday, anniversary etc.) I couldn't imagine what it was for. It turns out that the delivery was a GORGEOUS bouquet of flowers from my husband! I have been pretty sick lately and tend to just keep going as though everything is fine. Being a mom and a teacher, I am needed in many different directions, so I don't have the time to stop and take care of myself all that often. This typically means that I end up even sicker than when I started and then I have to get myself back to feeling well again. The card with the flowers basically said that he knows how hard it has been for me to be so sick and he knows this will get better soon. It was SUCH a thoughtful thing to do and I was thrilled!

Since it is Leap Day, I decided it was holiday enough to make a card. This was probably not the best decision, considering that I am exhausted and should have come home and gone to bed. Instead, I set out to create a "Leap" Day card with a cute little frog from the Cricut Once Upon a Princess cartridge. My first mistake was forgetting to run the frog through the Cuttlebug before he was assembled. I tried to do it after, but it messed the whole thing up. I decided it wasn't terrible and kept moving forward. I thought "glitter fixes everything!" SO, I grabbed a new tube of glitter to cover some of the less attractive areas on the frog, but it wouldn't come out of the tube. So, I squeezed a little harder and...

 This is what happened!! So, I apologize for the lack of card, but by the time this happened it was late and I decided it was a sign that I needed to get to bed!! If you've taken the time to read this post, I would love to hear about your craziest crafting disaster. Here's hoping I don't have another like this until the next leap day!!

Panda Hugs!
J-