It's November, can you believe it?!  I know I haven't been very attentive to my blog, but I have been creating!  I'm going on a sisters scrapbook/spa weekend tonight and hope to do more creating that I can share here!  Have a great weekend and happy scrappin'!

Spooky Banner

Hello All!  Just a quick post to show you what I've been up to lately.  My dear friend, Laura, and I spent yesterday creating this SPOOKY banner by using the CTMH new Cricut cartridge, Art Philosophy.  I cannot say enough good about this cartridge!!   I have to add that this banner was inspired by Andrea Sherman.  Thanks Andrea!  If anyone wants directions, please leave me a comment and I'll provide them.

As I said, the new CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge for the Cricut is phenomenal!  Not only does it have 700 images but multiply that by any size you can think of, up to 23.5" if you own a Cricut Expression or Imagine.  The cartridge also includes a fantastic font and a font layer!  It also has 3-D items like boxes, bags, envelopes, etc.
 
This Cricut Art Philosophy Collection is chock full of items to make incredible art, cards and scrapbook layouts!  In addition to the cartridge itself, you will receive 3 D-size My Acrylix stamp sets and 3 sets of Dimensional Elements that all coordinate with the Art Philosophy cartridge.  The price for this is $99 US.  To get this bundle for yourself so you can start creating, hop over to my website, JustHatchinIdeas  If you have any questions about this or any other Close to My Heart products, post a comment and I'd love to hear from you!  Happy Crafting!

Elaine's Birthday Card

Gratitude

So Friday was such fun with Laura, Debbie, Trina and Journey at Deb's house.  Her scrap area is to die for and we laughed and created and it was SO GOOD to get together!  Our friend, Elaine, no longer lives near us and is out of state, so we each created a birthday card for her!  It's going to be such fun for her to open the box and find all the different cards we made just in honor of her and her birthday!  Loved it!  The only sad thing...I FORGOT to take a picture of it before I sent it!  Whoops!  I'm slipping!  That night I also started my cover for my gratitude journal.  Once I get the cover done I'll take a pic of that so you can see.  I've been feeling like I need to show more gratitude for the good things in my life and for the lessons I'm learning from the hard things.  Debbie and Laura's gratitude journals are the one that Teresa Collins designed.  It's the same idea, write one thing, just one thing each day of something for which I am grateful.  I will start recording these on June 1st and the whole process covers one year. It will not only include my entries, but also photos or memorabilia that I collect along the way.  I am SO excited for it!  Yesterday I got the skeleton of the book put together and today put the pages all together.  I also plan on making some of my own embellishments with chipboard, stamping, shrinky dinks, ribbon and the like.  I'm hoping to offer this as a project class in July.  Guess what tool I brought out yesterday that I haven't used since I got it eons ago?  My light box!  Oh, that baby is so great for making sure things are lined up!  What tool have you recently (re)discovered?  My family laughed that I got so excited but it just made my task sooooo much easier!

Time to Create!!

I'm so excited because tonight I get to go to my friend's house and create with a few more of our friends!!  Now, this morning I wasn't feeling so excited because it's been such a very long week and I was thinking, "What?  One more thing?!"  Then I stopped and realized how rejuvenating it is to get together with good friends (good food too!) and just set our dial to CREATE!! Now, to get in the spirit of things today I will surf for creative ideas when I'm not doing actual work at my job here.  I've been finding that if I try to get my mind there before actually getting there I tend to be able to create MORE.  I think it's because I don't have to spend 2-3 hours trying to change my dial from practical/work to create/fun!  On my lunch I will peruse creative blogs and write down some ideas.  The one thing that I'm going to start work on is my gratitude journal!!!  I know, others have already done this but for me, I'm finally getting to it.  I am going to use the Lucky Level 2 Pack from CTMH.  Originally I had wanted to do a frou frou kind of a book, very sweet and very girly.  But I've fallen in love with this paper.  Yes, I already did one layout with it, but hey, I've got more paper and all the cute chipboard pieces and lovely stamps that go with it.  I'm using the little chipboard  My Creations All Sorts Mini Album I think I will use 2 of them and just use bigger rings.  Ideally this should be started at the beginning of the year, but I'm in the mood now!  You know how it goes, when you are in the mood, you just have to follow it because who knows when it will strike again.  Once I get the gratitude journal completed I promise I will post pictures and also offer it as a project class in July.  Here's hoping that you get some creative time this holiday weekend too!

New Layout-Love These People! My family!

This layout was made using the Lucky paper and chipboard accents.  It flew together pretty easily.  Oh, and I used some stamps from the You & Me kit too!  The title was done with the Cricut.