Falling for Halloween Blog Hop ~ Day 2

First I’d like to thank Maria for hosting this incredible Blog Hop this weekend and to also thank her for letting me participate in it. I’ve had a wonderful time and I hope that you have too.

Remember, you should have arrived here from Khrista’s blog. If not, you missed the beginning of the hop, so please go to Maria's blog to start so you don't miss any of the projects. I will also be picking one lucky visitor on Monday to receive a box of Blog Candy so be sure to leave comments on both days of the hop and become a follower! Now on to today’s projects!

I guess I wasn’t quite ready to put the vinyl away since I used it here in my first project. You gotta admit, this stuff is so addicting! Here is my Bewitching charger plate:

I bought the charger plate at Michaels with the bling already on it. I got it at a steal since it had some scratches on it – perfect for a Halloween craft project! For my image, I used the Cricut cartridges A Frightful Affair and Chic and Scary by Teresa Collins. I used the Cricut CraftRoom and my Expression to cut the witch from orange vinyl at 8” and the word ‘bewitching’  from iridescent vinyl at 1 1/2”.

I tried to take a photo from a different angle so you could see how beautiful this vinyl really is – but unfortunately I failed! But you can see that I blinged her up a little by placing rhinestones on her hat and shoes. After all, we all like bling – even the little witch in us, lol!

Next I made a Halloween Treat Milk box. These would be so cute to hand out to those special little ghosts and goblins that knock on your door this Halloween.

I used CTMH’s Artist cartridge and cut it out at 8” using paper from DCWV (Midnight Spell pad). The nice thing about this cart is that there is an extra handbook that comes with it with assembly instructions. After I adhered it together, I inked all of the edges with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Spiced Marmalade. I inked a piece of patterned paper from The Paper Studio and wrapped it around the box, added some rhinestones,

and the potion bottles that were cut from A Frightful Affair at 3”. The “liquid” in the potion bottles and the skull and crossbones were cut from glitter cardstock. I used pop-dots to give the bottles some dimension and added more bling.

The potion bottles cut is actually one piece that I cut into two separate pieces and placed on each side of the box. Just because a cut is a certain way in the handbook doesn’t mean that it has to end up on your project that way!

Before and after

The Happy Halloween is stamped with a Stampin’ Up stamp onto a Tim Holtz Sizzix die cut called Tattered Banners which I distressed with Distress Ink and Glimmer Mist then adhered with pop dots. I also used the mist and some Distressed Stains on some white seam binding to change the color of it. The flowers were punched out and also distressed and misted then adhered with glue dots and I placed a rhinestone in the center. Can you tell that I’m also addicted to distressing stuff? (Sorry, the ribbon looks washed out in the photo but looks much better IRL!)

But the following is still one of my favorite projects that I made last year – my little mummy and his tomb cut from the Happy Hauntings cart! Can you tell what the mummy is?

It’s a mini candy bar wrapped up in some plain white gauze with a couple of googly eyes attached!

Thanks so much for joining in on the hop today. Please be sure to check out all the participant's wonderful projects. I've posted the list below in case you've missed anyone. The next blog you will be visiting belongs to the very talented Nadia at http://www.withglitteringeyes.com/. Enjoy!

Maria @  stampcutcreate.blogspot.com

Michele @   scrap-n-dance.blogspot.com

Paulette @  http://scrapalette.blogspot.com/

Cindy @  http://www.inlovewithpaper.blogspot.com/

Beth @  http://seaswancreations.blogspot.com/

Renee @   icameisawicreated.blogspot.com

Debbie @ www.debseclecticthoughts.blogspot.com

Khrista @ http://creativeandcraftyteacher.blogspot.com/

Angela @ Angie's Paper Passion YOU ARE HERE!

Nadia @  http://www.withglitteringeyes.com/ 

Donna @  http://CarolinasCreativeCropper.blogspot.com/

Diane @ http://dianesdribble.blogspot.com/

Sara @  http://www.sarawandrews.com/

Michele @ www.michelegreen.com

Please come by again because I have more projects to keep you crafting!

Until next time, Happy Crafting,

Falling for Halloween Blog Hop

There’s a chill in the air so that means Fall has arrived! Well, ok, it’s not that chilly here in Texas but I am still excited about the Fall season! So welcome to the Falling for Halloween Blog Hop where we will be enjoying all the wonderful crafty inspiration for the Fall and Halloween season.
You should have arrived here from Khrista’s blog. If not, you missed the beginning of the hop, so please go to Maria's blog to start so you don't miss any of the projects.
Here at My Paper Passion I will be giving away some Blog Candy to one lucky visitor! All you will need to do is visit here during the weekend Blog Hop and leave a comment on both days and become a follower. I will then enter your name into the drawing and pick a winner next week. 

So here is my first project (yes, there are two projects today! I made more than one and I just couldn’t decide which to post so you are getting to see both!)

I love Halloween! I love to decorate my home with little ghosts and witches. And I also love working and decorating with vinyl. So for this project I mixed these two loves together and came up with this:

I used a glass block that I purchased from Hobby Lobby and sprayed it with a Specialty Frosted Glass spray made by Rust-oleum.

To see my original post about how I used the frosted spray, please go HERE. Then I used the new Cricut cartridge A Frightful Affair. This is a fabulous cartridge! I cut out the image from page 45 using the Silhouette feature in black vinyl. Since this image is not square, I used the Cricut CraftRoom to size it to 7.25x7.25 using Real Dial size and cut out the vinyl using a “kiss cut” – that means that you are just cutting the vinyl and not the vinyl backing. My Cricut Expression was set at Pressure - medium and Blade - 2.

After cutting the vinyl and adhering it to the glass block, I inserted two strands of Halloween lights that I purchased at Michaels – one orange and one purple. This looks great with the room lights off.

So since I had my vinyl out I just had to make something else. So I cut out this for my living room wall:

For this project, I used two different Cricut cartridges – the new one by Teresa Collins, December 25th, and Songbird. The original image, from December 25th, for the decorative parts of this wall art has the word ‘December’ in the middle so I used the Hide Contour feature in Cricut CraftRoom to hide it. Then I used Songbird to spell out the word ‘Thankful’. Can you see how versatile these Cricut cartridges can be? You can take a Christmas cartridge and use it for any occasion! So go through your cartridges and see what you can come up with! 

Thanks so much for joining in on the hop today. Please be sure to check out all the participant's wonderful projects. I've posted the list below in case you've missed anyone. The next blog you will be visiting belongs to the very talented Nadia at http://www.withglitteringeyes.com/. Enjoy!

Maria @  stampcutcreate.blogspot.com

Michele @   scrap-n-dance.blogspot.com

Paulette @  http://scrapalette.blogspot.com/

Cindy @  http://www.inlovewithpaper.blogspot.com/

Beth @  http://seaswancreations.blogspot.com/

Renee @   icameisawicreated.blogspot.com

Debbie @ www.debseclecticthoughts.blogspot.com

Khrista @ http://creativeandcraftyteacher.blogspot.com/

Angela @ Angie's Paper Passion YOU ARE HERE!

Nadia @  http://www.withglitteringeyes.com/ 

Donna @  http://CarolinasCreativeCropper.blogspot.com/

Diane @ http://dianesdribble.blogspot.com/

Sara @  http://www.sarawandrews.com/

Michele @ www.michelegreen.com

Please come back tomorrow to see what else I have created for the Blog Hop. Until then, Happy Crafting,

Vivi’s Vacation Mini Album~Cricut FANatics Blog

Today is my very first post on the Cricut FANatics blog and I’m very excited to share my project with you. I made a mini album for my little Granddaughter so she can scrap her photos and memorabilia from the cruise that she took with her family last month. I used the Mini Books cartridge and I really loved how quick and easy it was to make and put together. I used my Cricut Expression and the Cricut Craftroom to create this album.

I just used some cardstock and cruise themed patterned paper that I had on hand and some glittered cardstock to create my mini album along with some ribbons, brads, inks and pop dots. To make the embellishments, I used a variety of Cricut cartridges including Life’s A Beach, Pack Your Bags, Traveler, Ole and Destinations. There were just so many cute cuts to use for a cruise vacation!

This mini album has a front and back cover, a piece for the binding, 10 pages in graduated sizes, and 3 pocket or envelope pages. And although I didn’t use all of the pages, it still is a nice sized mini with plenty of room for pictures, journaling, and extras. A couple of the pages were a little small so I cut two each of the smaller pages and adhered them together to make pockets for larger tags.

Here is the page for Vivi to scrap about their stop in Mexico ~

I used different ribbons for my binding but you can also use some binding rings.

There are 3 different envelope pages for this mini album. These are perfect for putting extra photos in your book or even all of those extras that you come home with after a vacation – tickets. souvenirs, etc.

I hope that I have inspired you to finish scrapping those vacation photos or make a mini album for yourself or as a gift for someone special like have for my Granddaughter! I know that she will enjoy putting the finishing touches on her new vacation album!

Here are the cut sizes:
Mini Books – mini album on page 14 cut at 5”
Life’s A Beach – coral @ 5”, seaweed @ 4.5”, hibiscus @ 3.75”, shells @ 4”, wave border stretched to 6.78” x 1.46” in CCR
Pack Your Bags – ship @ 4”
Destinations – Mexico tag @ 3.5”
Ole – maracas @ 2.5”
Traveler – wave @ 5.5'” x 2” (in CCR), sunglasses @ 2.8”, ‘Adventure’ @ 1.8”, ‘Memories’ @ 2”, ‘Vacation’ @ 1.7” (parts of this were cut off by hand), name @ 1” (Font 1 Shadow)
Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of the mini album! I enjoy all of your “Blog Love” that you leave! Thank you.
Until next time, Happy Crafting,

PS – Please remember all of those who lost their lives and loved ones 12 years ago today and pray that we will never go through that horror again!

Are you a fanatic? A Cricut FANatic?

The definition of a Fanatic -

noun – a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal

Does this sound like anyone you know? wow! listen to all the, ME! ME! ME!  Well, then you are in for a treat! The new blog, Cricut FANantics, debuts tomorrow, September 1st! I am proud to announce that I am one of the Cricut FANatic designers and I will post a new Cricut project on the blog each month. It is a great honor because there are so many talented designers that will bring you Cricut inspiration each and every day of the month. Not only will there be projects each day but there will also be Cricut Crafty Challenges and Cricut Sketch Challenges every month. Click this link to head over to the blog and be sure to become a follower.

Until next time, Happy Crafting

Cricut Circle Stick Pin Swap

Hey friends! When I joined the Cricut Circle there was a stick pin swap already in progress but I loved reading the swap thread even though I wasn’t a part of the group. The posts on this thread were so entertaining and I could just tell that this group of women were a lot of fun. I posted that I was just having a ball reading their posts everyday and that I would like to try making some of the stick pins just for myself since I still had a lot of beads left over from my jewelry making days. To my amazement, a couple of the ladies agreed to do a one-on-one swap with me! Ohhh, how sweet (thanks jjewel and scrapcat). So I got to work on my pins – well, after a little retail therapy! Yes, I had to go buy a few, well okay, a little more than a few (and that’s all that I will admit to) more beads! Then towards the end of the swap, someone dropped out and they asked if I could be they’re Angel. They must have noticed the halo in my avatar – and they didn’t even mind if it was a little crooked, lol! So I ended up making enough stick pins for everyone in the group – two each. That’s a grand total of 38 stick pins! I even made a tag for each set although mine were nothing like the ones I received back. Those ladies aren’t just nice, they are all so talented! These are now my Circle sisters and some have become good friends.

Today I will share some of the stick pins that I made and later on I will share all of the gorgeous pins that I got in return. (I still haven’t taken any photos of them yet. I was so amazed when I opened the box, all I have been able to do is lay them all out and ohhh and ahhh over them!) Now, for those who are not sure what stick pins are, think about the old hat pins but on a smaller scale. They are very popular in scrapbooking and card making right now.

And here are two sets that I had already packaged with their tags:

I cut these cute little Bug Heads with my Cricut, of course!

The stick pins were so much fun to make and my Circle swap group is the greatest! I had so much fun, in fact, that I signed up with this group to swap again. This time? Yep, more beads! We are swapping beaded tendrils to make bracelets in one group and the other group is for the “die hard crafter” and we can make anything we want to as long as it has beads. I foresee another round of retail therapy in my near future…

Until next time, Happy Crafting,

Changes!

Hey friends, so much has happened (good and not so good) since I last blogged. Some of the good things:

• I LOVE life!
• Family has a different meaning now! It doesn’t mean the nuts that have fallen from MY tree. It does include the strong parts of my tree that have stuck by me – NO MATTER WHAT! (you know who you are and aren’t), my daughter, my son, my daughter-in-law, my Grandchildren, and my new Grandson who’s on the way, my dear and close friends, and my new online sisters!
• My Son has married a wonderful woman whom I am honored to call Daughter! And she has brought two beautiful grandkids into this family and I love them so much!
• I am looking forward to welcoming a new little one to our family in 2013!
• I am now a Cricut Circlet! Yes, I have found the PINK side!
• My blog has changed – and with any luck, it will change again – soon!
• I am crafting again! This is a big one, folks.
• I am many steps closer to getting my craft room set up just right!
• I have a new punchbowl (ok, this is an insider comment. If you know what it means, then it’s for you! Don’t be a hater!)
• And most important,  I am blessed!

There are more changes that have happened and many more to come and I’m excited about it all! I happy and excited to be sharing my art and heart with you and I invite your comments (Blog Love!). If you like what you see, I hope that you will follow me on my crafty journey. And for all of my current followers, I LOVE YOU ALL! Thank you for sticking with me!

Here’s a preview of tomorrow’s post:

Until next time, Happy Crafting,

New Blog Under Construction

I have been MIA for quite some time but I’m coming back with a new blog look and a new ME! I’m excited about the changes and I’ll explain as I go. A big THANK YOU to all of my followers who have stuck it out with me so far. I appreciate you all. So excuse the ‘mess’ while I’m working on making a new blog to go with my new life!