Getting Ready For Christmas!!!

These last couple of weeks have just been crazy for me! A friend's husband turned forty today actually, but she threw him a surprise party last Saturday, and she asked me to make him a cake.
They both love to play cards, so she asked me to make a poker themed cake. She sent me a picture to follow and this was my version of it:

It was a lot of fun to create, although I was really nervous when it came to covering it in fondant, I just felt really rusty....lol

This week I have been back to focusing on Christmas. I wanted to get a head start with my wrapping when I realized that we have a number of gift cards that we are giving away.
I always like doing something special for the gift cards, so I spent some time yesterday making some gift card holders.
Here is a video that I posted to YouTube, where I make a gift card holder:

I hope that you having a great day!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

Christmas Treat Bags

Last night was the last night of our Church's kids program until the new year, so I wanted to make the girls in my group a little treat bag. I wanted it to be simple and have some meaning also :)

Here is what I came up with:

The blue base was embossed with the Cuttlebug Snowflake embossing folder, the star is from the Cricut cartridge Christmas and the sentiment is from the Scrappy Moms Winter Wishes stamp set.
I wanted to mention that I hid all of the intricate cuts on the star to help speed up the cutting and the assembling of the star. I was making enough that it would have been a very long process picking out all of the little pieces of paper on all of them...lol!!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

Baby Boy Card

A friend from church had a little baby boy about a week and a half ago, so I wanted to make her a card to go with the small gift we got for her.

I am so happy with how his card turned out :) I used the Lawn Fawn, Plus One stamp set for the cute mobile and sentiment, and the Elegant Edges Cricut cartridge to cut out the scalloped oval and frame.




I coloured in the stars and moon with my Spectrum Noir markers and then added some Wink of Stella glitter to them. I stamped some little stars and hearts on the craft card stock with some Versa Mark ink.

I hope your having a great Tuesday!! Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

Christmas Tags

I have been having a lot of fun over the last couple of weeks creating lots of different Christmas cards, so today I decided to make some fun and simple tags. :)




These were so nice and easy to make. I cut the tag from the Tags, Bags, Boxes and More 2 Cricut cartridge and stamped them with the 2011 Holiday Tag stamp set form Papertrey Ink.


With this being the first Sunday of advent, I spent some time this afternoon cleaning up our advent wreath. This is a nice family piece for me because it is the one my family used when I was little, it is nice to have it and use it with my boys.



I know that you're supposed to use a purple candle for the fourth candle, but my mom always used red one so that's what I have decided to do too :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

Candy Cane Invitation

This is my favourite time of the year!!! On the eve of December I am sitting here feeling excited with anticipation for all that awaits us in the month ahead.
I just love how a plain everyday space can become so beautiful after being decorated for Christmas, and seeing so many decorations all over town!

I also love all the excitement from my boys as we grow closer to Christmas. I have begun to slowly decorate our house and with every new discovery they make, the more excited they are becoming.
One big recognizable event for our family is the starting of Advent tomorrow. The lighting of a new candle every Sunday is such a nice way to keep in mind the true meaning of Christmas for all of us!!

Next week will be the beginning of our holiday party's. We hold a Candy Cane party which is our holiday kids party :).
We will be getting together with my sister and her family and my mom, eating home made pizzas, candy cane ice cream, candy cane cookies and watching the move Elf with Will Farrell. This movie is by far our family's favourite Christmas movie!!!

I am going to send my niece and nephew an invitation to our party to help get them all excited too!!!
Here is what I came up with:

The background paper is from an old Recollections Christmas paper pad. The cute little candy cane is from the Simply Charmed Cricut cartridge. The sentiment is from the My Pink Stamper, Birthday Crazy stamp set. I added glitter to his little cheeks, and lopped him up on a stitched journaling card I cut with my die from Lawn Fawn. I just love how this invitation turned out!!!


This morning I went to a crop at my church and we had the opportunity to learn how to make this really cool card!! It was fun to create, and I love how it turned out!!

Well I'm off after supper to my first Stampin' up party!! I am having such a crafty day!!! Lol

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

P.S we had such a beautiful sunset tonight, I thought I would share.... So pretty with everything covered in snow!!

A Christmas Card Kit

When I woke up this morning I woke up to a beautiful winter wonder land :). Everything was covered with a sparkling layer of snow. All the tree tops, house tops...everything that was still was covered in about 15 cm of snow. I wish I had of taken a picture of it all, but right after I was done appreciating it the reality of the morning sunk in.
Mike, my husband, would need some extra help shovelling his car out the driveway to get out to work. My oldest and youngest went out to help, which does not always turn out to be much help!!! ...Lol (but it's the thought that counts right???)

I am a leader of a children's group at our church and tonight is our last regular meeting before Christmas, so all I could think about was Christmas crafts!!!
We painted Christmas ornaments and created Christmas cards for the children to give to someone special.
Here is a picture of the card kit I created for tonight:



Here is how I designed the card, this is probably not how the kids will though...lol which is all good :)



I cut this cute ornament from the Cricut cartridge Simply Charmed, the embossed snowflakes was created with the Snowflake Cuttlebug embossing folder and the sentiment is from a Scrappy Moms stamp set Winter Wishes.

I hope you had a great day, thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

One Fun Cake :)

This weekend had been a fun but a very busy weekend for me. I wanted to share this post with you now because I will be heading to bed early tonight!!!

Friday night I was busy making a tiered birthday cake for my friends daughter who is turning 18. It was a lovely night because my friend Robin (the birthday girl's mom) came over and helped me decorate it. We sat in my kitchen listing to Christmas music and chatting while we worked. Usually when I make party cakes like this I spend hours by myself in the kitchen creating... I love to do it but sometimes it is really nice to have the company :)

Her daughter really loves bright colours and zebra print, so that is what we created for her!!! I just loved how the cake turned out:

Both tiers of the cake are yellow pound cake and covered in fondant. The zebra print and the purple balls are also created with fondant. I made the 18 out of gum paste so it would be harder and stand up on top of the cake :)

On to Saturday night...lol

This week my husband was lucky enough to receive two Leaf's tickets from work!!! He will often go to games with other co-workers but this time he got two tickets, so that meant I could go...lol 

It was a great game, the Leaf's played the Capitals in what turned into an overtime shootout, that we won!!! It was a lot of fun :)  

We live about 2 1/2 hours away from Toronto so by the time we got to the car, out of the downtown area and to my mother in-laws house to pick up our boys we were not leaving the city until after 12:00 AM!!

we pulled into the driveway about 2:40 am this morning, so today has been a rather lazy day to say the least...

Here is my husband and I during the second intermission

I took this picture because the ref was holding on to that stick for a good 2-3 mins and I was beginning to think that he might join in the game...lol

It was a great weekend, I'm now off to go and make some supper and to get my boys off to bed early!

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

My Die Storage Solution

I have a corner in my basement that I have been blessed with and able to turn into a craft corner. I have had fun over the last year getting everything nice and organized and just the way I like it.

I am a very visual person so I have been creating storage solutions for almost everything from my paper, stamps and inks in places and containers where I can see what I have.
I have seen many videos on YouTube about die storage and lately I has seen some crafters storing their dies on their wall with various forms of magnets and that got me thinking about how I would like to store my dies.
I had fun creating my die storage and getting all of my dies out and where I can see them!!
Here is a video from my YouTube channel where I show and talk about my die storage solution:

Well I'm glad that tomorrow is Friday, I am looking forward to the weekend!!! I hope you have a great night :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

Christmas Card Sale

I was shopping at Costco a couple of weeks ago and they had a big box of hand made Christmas cards for sale. Well that inspired me to get moving and create some of my own Christmas cards to sell.

I had a lot of fun creating these cards and I hope that you like them :)

A Partridge in a Pair Tree card - Set of 12 for $10

Home Spun Holiday Wishes card- Set of 6 for $10

Holiday Hugs card - Set of 6 for $10

Snow flake Joy card - Set of  12 for $10

 They will all come in a cute little box to keep them protected until you are ready to send them out :)

Here is a picture of how your cards will arrive to you :)

*All the cards will come with envelopes. I will find the cheapest way of shipping them out to you :) 

I except Pay Pal and will email you my information if you would like to purchase one or more of my Christmas cards sets. You can email me at  thecraftnut32@gmail.com,  or leave a comment in the comment section below.

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

It's All About The Food

Today turned out to be a very nice day but a busy day. Not a productively busy day, but the kind of day that just flies by and you wonder how it got to be ten to nine at night!!!

Since I did not get much done around the house today or any errands in I wanted to make a nice dinner for tonight. We had a very windy day which made it feel much colder than it was, so I wanted something that would warm up my guys.

I decided to make a pork stew, which was more of a soup and some baking powder biscuits with cheese. I just love this meal...It is very tasty and just full of veggies!! I also love it because it is super cheep to make...lol, and there is enough left overs in the fridge for another supper for at least two people!!!

Here are some pictures of all the yummyness from tonight:

After supper I wanted a little something so I decided to pull out my stash of tea and I decided to make a cup of chocolate cake tea from David's Tea. It was good and I really enjoyed it :)

Well it's getting late and I'm off to watch some Kelly and Michael that I pvr'd from this morning and then I'm off to bed :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

A Get Well Soon Card

I was supposed to get together with my cousin last week and she unfortunately had to cancel because of ripped retina. I found out today that she had to have surgery on her left eye last week and she is scheduled to have another surgery this time on her right eye on Tuesday.

I am planning to going to go and drop of a card for her tomorrow and a little something with it (flowers or a sweet treat, I haven't decided yet...lol).
Here is the card I made for her:

I made this simple card with the cute Lawn Fawn stamp set On The Mend. I stamped this cute little image once on the card and then a second time on a scrap piece of patterned paper. I then fussy cut the boxed portion out and  adhered it over top of the first stamp on the card.

I hope that you have had a great weekend... I'm now off to bed to start what looks like a busy week.

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

Some Pretty Nails

These last couple of months have just been a blur for me. Summer is a distant memory, school in now in full swing and Christmas is in view (which I cannot believe!!!).
This year my youngest son has started JK. He goes every day all day, so my days as a stay at mom are looking very different.....lol I all of a sudden feel unemployed, my job of the past 10 years has disappeared :( .
My days still feel busy though, everything is now getting done and my house is becoming very organized!! I am also looking for a job outside the home too...

A couple of weeks ago my husband surprised me with this very pretty nail polish form Sally Hansen :) I also tried for the first time a base coat and a fast dry top coat both from China Glaze, which both a very good job (just in case your in the market).

The colour is mermaid's Tail

I have bee admiring my nails all evening, the colour is so pretty!!!

My oldest son has had a fun afternoon folding origami Yoda's and he wanted me to share one with you. Here is his favourite one:

Too cute!!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

Thank You Card and Gift Set

Hello, I hope that you have having a wonderful Saturday, mine is off to a slow start today, lol. 

I have not had much time to craft over the last couple of months now so getting back to my craft table the other night was a lot of fun :)

I wanted to create a thank you card and coordinating gift set for our neighbours as a thank you for collecting our mail while we were away. 

Here is a video that I posted on my YouTube channel of me explaining how I made the card, envelope and box set :

And a picture of the finished set :)

Well I think that's it's time for me to get going and enjoy this beautiful Saturday :) 

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl 

My Teacher Appreciation Gifts

Well I got them all done and I am really happy with how this years teacher appreciations gifts turned out. I almost did not get them done... I don't know what I was thinking but I was planning to finish them up tomorrow when all of a sudden it dawned on me that I need them ready for tomorrow!!! lol 

Here is a video that I posted on my YouTube  but I thought that I would also share it here too :)

I also took some close up pictures of them.

This is the card I made, inside it says Teacher!! 

I know that my boys are excited for summer, and it has been a very late night for them (Bobby just came down to tell us something!!it is 10:31!!) so they will all be very tired in the morning for sure...lol 

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl 

Working on Some Cards

Hi there, today is the 3rd last day of school of my two older boys, so I have busy at my craft table making some end of the year teacher appreciation gifts.
Usually we get gift cards to Tim Hortons but this year I saw some cute card sets while browsing on Pintrest, so I decided to attempt some gift card sets for them instead!! :)

Here are some parts for the cards, I have created a little assembly line to put together the apple on the scallop circle...




It has been a very hot couple of days so I have enjoyed sitting in the basement cooling off making up all these cards. I am trying to see how long we can go without turning on the AC, and so far it's a little hot but good...lol

Over the next couple of days I will post the finished cards :)

I hope your having a great day

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

Fun With My New Stamps :)

A couple of weeks ago I joined the Stamps of Life Stamp Club. The club is pretty fun because every month on the first they mail you a new stamp set!!! I joined right at the end of May so I received May stamps and I also ordered a butterfly stamp set too. Since then I have also received the June stamps and I have been having so much fun with all three new stamp sets!!! :)

The first card was created using the butterfly2build stamp set:

The next cards were from the lemonade2drink stamp set:

For the lemonade I stamped out the cup on some white card stock and then stamped it a second time on some yellow and then fussy cut them out. I added some glitter on the yellow and then layered on some of the ice cubes that I had cut out.

The patterned paper is from a Classic K paper pack and then added a brown bow.

I created this card two times because I stared off making the green one and then I wondered if limes were sour or if it was just lemons...lol 

I stamped out the lemons with some Memento Tuxedo black ink and then I coloured them in with some  Inktense pencils. I love how bright they turned out; they will be great to send them out to my Nephews!! 

The last card I made was with the phone4you stamp set:

I used my Cricut and the Elegant Edges cartridge for the fancy square and a punch to cut out the little hearts. I am always looking for a place to put glitter so I added some to  the two litter hearts :)  

I stamped the background with the little cord from the phone and then distressed the edges of the card with some Broken China Distress ink.  

I am already looking forward to July's stamps :) :)

Thanks for Stopping by,

Cheryl

A Mini Album for my Mom

Hello, I hope everyone is having a wonderful night tonight. It is rainy here so I have been busy making and filming some videos for my YouTube channel thecraftnut32. 
Tonight I am here to share a video of a mini album that I made for my mom, she is giving as a gift to one of her good friends.  This mini was really fun to make and I am really happy with how it turned out :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl 

My Last Two Spring Cards

Hi there, I know that it had been a while since my last post but time seems to be just flying by!! The weather is nice and warm for the most part and I have been enjoying all the sunshine and beautiful flowers that are all around.

I finished up my Spring Card Series over on my YouTube channel a little while ago so I thought that I would share my cards with you here too!! If you would like to see more, here is a link to my YouTube channel, thecraftnut32. Well on to my two spring time cards!!

Here is the video of my Spring Card #3:

and here is the video of my Spring Card #4:

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

A Happy Birthday to my Hubby :)

Today is Mike's Birthday :) I have been busy over the last little while trying to get things ready to make his day special. 
Getting ready for today I made him a supper cute card using the Lawn Fawn stamp set Love "n Breakfast.
Here is a video that I made describing the card...

I hope that you have a great day...

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl 

Spring Card #2

Hi Everyone, Happy Friday!!!

Over the last little while I have been really looking forward to spring, it is my favourite time of the year!!! We have had a very cold winter and are now beginning to get some warmer weather, which I am loving...

To celebrate this beautiful time of year I am doing a spring time card series. Last week’s card was the first in my series and today I am going to share my second card in the series.  

I have made a video describing my card for my YouTube channel, so I thought that I would share that here too:

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

Happy Spring :)

We have had a long and cold winter here in Ontario, so I thought that I would make some cute and cherry spring themed cards for some friends and family. 

I decided to use this cute digital stamp from Tiddly Inks to create my card:

I coloured in this cute little girl using my Spectrum Noir markers. I added glossy accents to the hearts and I distressed the edge of the paper and then  inked it up with some Faded Jeans Distress ink. 
I cut the clouds out with some Papertrey Ink dies and then added some Studio g glitter glue to the edges and then popped them up on some foam. The flowers and leaves are cut from a Martha Steward punch and from the Flower Shoppe Cricut cartridge. 

The sentiment is from a My Pink Stamper set: Flowers and Friendship, I distressed the edge and then inked it up. 

The patterned paper is from the Recollections Mosaic Memory stack.  

I hope that you have a great weekend :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

Challenges I am participating in this week:

Tiddly Inks: Challenge #107- Distress, Emboss or Stitch, Oh MY 

Simon Says Stamps and Show: A Very Strict Challenge. 

Challenge Water

Hi there, this week I am participating in the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge. This weeks theme is water so I decided to create this card:

This is a 5 by 5 inch card, the background paper is from the Recollections Mosaic Memory stack.  The flower stamp is an Hero arts stamp that I coloured in with my Spectrum Noir markers. I used some distress inks and a text stamp to create the background. I dripped some water on it and distress the edges to give it an aged look. I used some Papertrey Ink twine and some butterflies that I punched from a Martha Stewart punch to finish it off.

Thanks for stopping,

Cheryl

A Pretty Thank You Card

Hi there, Last month my husband surprised me with some Spectrum Noir markers!!! I just love them and I have been have been having a lot of fun colouring with them and creating some really cut images :)

A couple of weeks ago I created this card with an image I found from a Google search of digital stamps. I used my new markers to colour it in and I got the idea for the card layout from a Mojo Monday sketch. 

Here is a video I made for my YouTube channel describing my card in more detail:

I hope that you have a great day &

thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl

A Bee Mine Valentine's Card

After Christmas, Valentine's Day is my next favorite holiday. Well, I know that Valentine's is not a real holiday but it is something that I look forward to and decorate for...lol. I love all the pink and red with Valentine's day, such cheerful colours for a fun little day :)

I have been making some cards that I am going to mail off to friends and family this week and here is a video that I made showing and describing it:

I really love this card, and I really love this cute little stamp set from Lawn Fawn :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Cheryl