Countdown to CREATE!

Oh my goodness, can it really be only 100 days until we go to Create?! Create is the Anna Griffin crafting weekend in Atlanta, in case you are wondering. I have been counting down the weeks, and now the days until my sista and I get to go. To top it off, it's my birthday weekend! Ohmagawd! I can't even!  I'm super excited. This will be our first year to attend, but the 3rd year for this event. We get to take classes and mingle with other Griffinites (as they call themselves). However, my sista and I call ourselves The ANNAbelles. I mean, we are southern belles afterall. Cute, right? 

In great anticipation of our festive trip, I made us each a countdown calendar. I designed the calendar stand myself in Cricut Design Space, using one continuous sheet of cardstock. The blocks are a standard Cricut cut. I also used Anna Griffin font for the numbers, days/weeks text, and "CREATE". Another font was used for "Countdown to".  Of course Anna Griffin patterned paper was used to decorate it, even the oh-so-slim strips on all the edges. To really make it stand out, I used an Anna die cut, cut two different ways from black cardstock, adhered to the back beneath the patterned paper. It makes me think of some fabulous wrought iron in a quaint historic town somewhere. 


There are actually 4 number blocks to make sure I had enough of the numbers I needed. A clever little trick I incorporated was to make the Days/Weeks strip reversible, so one side reads Days and the other side reads Weeks. And you'll never guess what I used as the holder for that strip. Look close, it's the corner I cut from an acetate pack of stickers, literally the packaging itself! So two sides are already sealed, the bottom and the right side. The other two open sides allow me to change the text Days/Weeks as needed. I adhered the acetate holder to the bottom front of the calendar base with glue dots. I started counting down at 20-some weeks, but I knew I'd switch to days once I hit 100 days (Today, August 1st!!). I could still count down weeks if I wanted to, but I was ready for the days countdown! I added some flowers, pearls, and bling and bam, I was done!
My sista and I proudly display our countdown calendars on our desks at work, hers is the green/yellow/pink one and mine is the teal/green/pink one. 




Miles of Smiles,

Box Card of Flowers

I am loving how easy it was to make this gorgeous box card. It is an Anna Griffin design, from her Windowbox Cardmaking Kit and Dies. The box card base, papers, flowers and sentiment flags all came in the kit. I added the white die cut doily and butterfly to the front. I added pearls and glitter to the butterfly and some glitter to the flowers. I can make these beauties all day long! 



Miles of Smiles,

Coloring My World, One Page at a Time

Here are some things I have colored lately. The owls are from an owl coloring book that I received for Christmas. This one was colored with mostly gel pens. The others below are 6x6 gold foil coloring pages. All colored with markers. Some Sharpie, Steadtler triplus fineliners, Bic Mark-it, whatever I can find to color with. I tried to give you a good idea of the gold foil print in the Just Be Yourself page. I LOVE the gold foil and I think there should be more coloring books like this. Coloring is super chill. I colored a couple of these on an airplane. In turbulence!  lol  I somehow managed to stay in the lines. 


Miles of Smiles,

Brother Beachy Birthday

This is the birthday card I made for my older brother. As I always say, guy cards aren't easy. I went with an orangey/yellowy card base, a wave patterned paper that I embossed with swirls, added a fussy cut banner to the top, a strip of plaid to the right (all Fancy Pants Papers), an Anna Griffin collage topped with some beachy elements like anchors, a fish tag, and palm trees sticker. The "birthday wishes" sentiment is die cut from a Tim Holtz die. I also added a few sparkly blue bubble stickers to the background. 




Miles of Smiles,

Teddy Bear Birthday

This teddy bear is so cute! I cut the bear on my Cricut using a My Scrap Chick template. I made this card for my friend who loves teddy bears. The bear is cut from metallic gold paper, brushed with brown ink, and assembled with foam dots for dimension. I drew his features and added the sweet pink polka dot bow tie. You can tell it's a girl bear, right? lol I added a few bright pink flowers for some pop of color too. I am totally loving this bear!


Miles of Smiles,

16th Birthday-Boy

I made this card for a friend's son who turned 16. Now usually, when you think 16th birthday you think "Sweet 16". That's great for a girl, but a little cheesy for a boy. So I decided "Super 16" was much more appropriate for a dude. I found some patterned map paper for the background, cut a black "iron" looking border, motorcycle and highway sign all on the Cricut. The motorcycle has some silver fine glitter paper to mimic chrome, with other layers of black, white, and patterned green. You can see up close that I used my bone folder to give the tires, handlebar, and seat some hash marks for texture. The highway sign originally said "dad" where the numbers are, but I removed the word and added the 3D numbers instead. Overall I like this card's colors and design, and I was still able to connect with a "new driver" but not with the usual car image. The motorcycle is a little edgier, and I really loved the highway sign displaying the birthday numbers. 





Miles of Smiles,

Girly Vintage Card

I colored this LaLaLand image a while back, and recently purchased this super cute girly Authentique paper that coordinates wonderfully! At first this was going to be a tri-fold card, but then I changed my mind as I rearranged it. It became a single fold 5.5 square card. You can see I already sized the polka dot background paper for that purpose though. I figured it still worked. There's a couple of pre-printed die cuts, and Crafty Secrets stickers, which I added buttons and ribbon to. The girl image is colored with American Crafts Chromatix markers. I wasn't thrilled with them, and am still searching for a marker that I really like. I cut out the image and attached it with foam dots. Such a girly card, with a hint of vintage, and I love it!

Miles of Smiles,

Gorjuss Thinking of You

Yet another Gorjuss card! I was definitely in the groove with these little cuties! First of all, what an amazing image! I added 2 Anna Griffin die cuts behind it, and a print & cut Anna Griffin sentiment. I fussy cut that tiny bow on the teddy bear, but doesn't it just look perfect on him? I print and cut the love heart too. Lavender pearls accent the die cut corners. Stickles accent the black die cut and the image background. I love that black die cut, it makes me think of really fancy wrought iron.

Miles of Smiles,

Gorjuss Foxy

Here is another Gorjuss Girls card. I so love their designs! For this card, I used an Anna Griffin die cut over the background and a Martha Stuart border bunch.  I cut snippets of ribbons and attached them behind the image. The sentiment is die cut from glitter foam using a Tim Holtz word die. Various flowers finish it off with some bling as well. Some Stickles are dotted on the background of the image too. Look at that fox, is he not the cutest?! I really like the colors in this one.

Miles of Smiles,

Gorjuss

I was playing with my Gorjuss Girls decoupage sets recently. I just love them! For this card, I added some paper flowers, silk flowers and a crocheted flower in shades of lavendar, plum and periwinkle. I also added some Stickles to the top layer of the image. So cute!  The bees are from a confetti pack from Jolee's and I had the chipboard sentiment forever. 

Miles of Smiles,

Holiday Bells

These are the other Christmas cards I made for family and friends. There wasn't enough time to make a 3D one for everyone! But I liked this design. I cut the bells and branches on the Cricut using metallic and glitter cardstocks. The sentiment is a print & cut from Anna Griffin. I added a small bow to each one and attached the bells with foam dots for added dimension.

Miles of Smiles,