Lo-o-o-o-ng Weekend

Cricut Man was gone this weekend.  He's been in Denver bringing up the State of Colorado on their new administrative systems.  Can't begin to tell you how much I miss him.  I've discovered "Party-For-One" time is only fun when done in short bursts - not so much fun when it drags on for 2 weeks.  

But enough complaining!  I tried to fill up the long holiday weekend with catching up on things around the house and crafting.

Spent the 4th having some fun with my neighbor family.  Great ribs from the smoker and lots and lots of wonderful side dishes and desserts.  Made a really cute hostess gift for Marilyn - a patriotic inspired candy box full of M&M's.  Forgot to photograph it but here's another I made from all the leftover scraps for Cricut Man's desk.  Hope he likes it.  Notice on the 2nd pic that on one side I used accounting ledger paper just for him :-)

I wanted to put some ribbon trim around the box lid but didn't have any blue that was just the right color.  So Distress Ink to the rescue.  Rubbed a little Brushed Corduroy on a bright blue polka dot ribbon and presto-magic! I had navy blue.

Had just a few little scraps left and couldn't let them go to waste so here's another little 2x2 box just for me.  Nice and simple.

All in all a great way to pass the time on a husband-less Saturday night.  Hope your long weekend was a good one too.  Can't wait to here all about it.  Hopefully Wednesday night will work for catching up with the Gal Pals!  See you soon.

6x6 Template

Had tons of fun making this year's 4th of July card.  While surfing this weekend found a really cool idea for using 6x6 paper pads.  It's kind of like that template for getting 10 cards from 1 piece of patterned paper.

You take 6 different papers from a 6x6 paper pad and use 1 of 2 templates to make the cuts.  From those cuts you arrange the pieces to make 6 different cards.  Here's an example of the templates:

And here's the link to blog to see more of the process and the resulting cards.  Way cool, huh?!

So I took this paper pad - one that I bought when we were on our Gal Pals road trip to Ben Franklin all those years ago.  It was just perfect for the 4th of July.  

And I picked one of the card designs from Template 2.  I didn't do the little banner pieces as I was running short on time and didn't add the brads because of the postage issue but I still loved how it turned out.

The "Let Freedom Ring" sentiment was from a My Digital Studio stamp set called "Red, White & Blue".  Just love the new version of MDS and the tool that lets you color different parts of the stamp.

I didn't have an oval punch that fit the sentiment so I did some serious math and figured out how to size and place an oval on Cricut Craftroom to cut them out.  My toys really got a work out with this one!

Happy 4th of July

Hope everyone had a nice day off and a HAPPY 4TH OF JULY !!!  And Mona, I hope you had a great time christening your new cabin!  We'll look forward to hearing all about next week at the shop.

Wow! Didn't intend to be away from this blog for over 2 1/2 months! But I must have needed the break. And now I feel ready to be back in the saddle. Plus I had a stash of cards that I've been making that I'm anxious to share with you. 

I'll kick things off with the card I sent to the family last week.
Mona and Val will remember that I've pledged to do a whole year of holiday cards using my Stampin Up! owl punch.  I got inspired when I made this card for the family on St. Patty's day. 

I just loved the little "springy" things that Memory Lane has in stock to pop up the owl and make him jiggle. So I decided for each major holiday the owl will be dressed in themed paper and will sit on a springy shape that matches the theme -- hence the red, white and blue paper and the sparkly star for the 4th of July.

Well enough chatter for today. See you back here tomorrow. I've got lots of fun cards to share with you for the next couple of weeks.

P.S. Val - so good to see you Tuesday night at the shop!!! Thanks for joining me.  I hope the healing continues and that you get to feeling a little better each and every day.