Cuttlebug Spa Weekend Quick Links

Here are some Quick Links for the Spa Weekend Event hosted by the Cuttlebug Challenge:

BLOG HOP post at CBC

MY BLOG HOP post

Here's a partial list of what you can win this weekend in addition to the tutorial prizes.

Bride Shopping Tags

Hello girls! Are you enjoying all the great inspiration over at Cuttlebug Challenge? If you haven't been by yet today, be sure to visit. Jennifer McGuire is joining us as our Special Guest Designer and has a great challenge for all of us.

Today Meda, Eva and I also created some wonderful wedding projects. Here's a little peek at mine!

This was very easy to create! It's a simple treat pull pouch. I found the little "like it" and "love it" tabs at Michaels in the bridal section. If you would like to create a similar project, here are some simple instructions for you.

Materials needed:

cardstock

assorted flowers

red liner tape

cuttelbug and embossing folder

glue dots

ribbon (36" in length is what I used. More than enough but I wanted to have lots to tie my bow. You could probably get by with 24")

1. Cut cardstock to 7 1/2 inches by 6 5/8 inches for the pouch. The insert measures 2 3/4 inches by 6 inches. Score at 2 inches and 5 inches on the long side.

2. Emboss cardstock. Apply red liner tape along the bottom outside flaps and along on of the short sides. Fold and close pouch.

3. Decorate outside with sentiment gem sticker. Flowers are created by layering silk flowers together. Use glue dots to assemble and adhere to pouch.

4. Adhere tags to insert using glue dots. Tie ribbon around insert with the bow at the top. Insert into pouch.

There is also a giveaway over on the Cuttlebug Challenge blog today. I'm giving away this beautiful pave bangle bracelet to one of our lucky followers! Be sure to visit the CBC blog and see the other projects and get entered to win! Think about how prettily it will sparkle at a special event - or while you craft!! ETA: The post at CBC is scheduled for 1 PM my time - and I goofed when I scheduled this! And it's showing 5/3 as the date. Sorry girls! I really thought Sat. was our day!

Thanks so much for stopping by! I've so enjoyed your visits and comments and the little bits you share about yourselves with me!
Have a beautiful day!!

Banana Split: Wearing Stripes

Good evening! or morning depending on when you are reading this! It's still Friday night for me. (My blog hop post is directly below this one so when you finish here, just keep scrolling!)

I am so excited to announce that I am officially a banana - not just any banana but a RED BANANA!! 2RedBananas is a new stamp company that opened earlier this year and I have just really enjoyed the stamp lines that Jeanette carries as well as the other products! She had me at ribbon! Gorgeous, wonderful ribbons. I own a few yards of several. They make me smile. I need to not hoard them; I do know where to get more! LOL!! It'll be one of my goals for the next year!! When she asked me a few weeks ago to join the design team I was a happy girl! Smiled for hours and kept re-reading the email! I'm so lucky to be joining a fabulous bunch of girls and really look forward to working with them over the next year!

Every Sunday the Bunch issues a challenge - the Banana Split Challenge! It's fun and has zero calories! This week's challenge was to use stripes in your creation. I know the week is almost over, but if you get chance, link up your creation over at the 2RedBananas blog for a chance to win some My Mind's Eye paper!!

I used the Caring Critters set for my card today. Birds always make me think of my mother. She knows what many of them are and can even identify them just by hearing them. I was loading the washing machine this morning and my little man came running in from outside: "I saw a robin Mommy! I saw a robin!" We've had lots of robins around our house this spring.

My image was colored with my Prismacolor pencils and baby oil. Here's the entire finished card:

No bird soars too high

if he soars with his own wings.

~William Blake

I hope you soar this weekend!

I'll have another post on Saturday for the Cuttlebug Challenge Spa Event along with more blog candy so I hope you'll come back for that!

P.S. I've loved all your comments today! So many of you love lavendar and love the Johnson & Johnson Sleep Time lavendar bath for little ones too!

Cuttlebug Spa weekend: Relax, Rejuvenate, Be Inspired!

Happy Friday everyone!! It's finally time for the Cuttlebug Challenge Spa Retreat! We are kicking off the weekend with a blog hop! You've got all weekend to hop around so don't feel like you have to rush! Grab your beverage of choice, get comfy and enjoy. Do it all at once or space it out all weekend!

Here's what to do:
-- Grab the list of Blogs for the Hop found HERE
-- Leave a comment on each blog
-- "Follow" each blog
-- Each blog will have a spa weekend post with instructions, and a specific flower
-- Collect the names of all the Blog Hop Hosts and their flowers
-- Once done, email us at cuttlebugchallenge @ gmail. com to be entered to win one of the Spa Weekend prizes.


It's always good to take a moment to relax and rejuvenate! I chose Lavender as my flower because it is typically used to relieve stress and tension. And I think the fields of lavender growing in France are just lovely!



Ever since my little man was a baby, we have used the lavender scented bubble bath and lotion from Johnson & Johnson at bedtime. Lavender is believed to be soothing and relieve tension. I definitely think it helps him!

About 10 years ago I found some lavender scented linen mist and ever since then I love to spray my sheets with lavender scented linen spray/pillow mist. Just a light spray before crawling in bed. (It's a great trick for traveling too as I tend to have a hard time sleeping in a different bed.) That and a game or two of Sudoku and then I'm off to dreamland. You would think Sudoku would stimulate my brain; I think it's actually just a focused, easy activity and allows my mind to escape all the other stuff that builds up in it during the day! Without it I lay in bed thinking of all I wanted to get done and didn't and all that needs to be done the next day. And then of course I start stressing out about the sleep I'm losing!! LOL!!

You can find some more information here about other benefits of lavender.

Thanks for stopping by!! I do have a little treat to give away to TWO lucky readers!! Yep, TWO!! I love this stuff and want to share it with you! I'll be giving away a small bottle of Lavender-Vanilla Pillow Mist from Bath & Body Works and a small sachet of culinary grade lavendar, which you can cook with if you felt so inclined or use it in a craft project!

To win, all you have to do to win my prize is become a follower and leave a comment!

Cassie's Flower (that's me): Lavender (ETA: You only need the 30 flower names!)
Your next stop is: Jenyfur

Be sure to visit all the blogs - several of the design team have prizes to giveaway on their blogs and of course there are the big prizes over at the CBC blog!

Thursday Thirteen: Things I Wouldn't Want to Live Without

1. The sound of my little man's laughter

2. the Grace of God

3. Liberty

4. Capris

5. Ice Cream

6. Washing Machine/Dryer

7. Friends: local & cyber

8. the Promise of Spring

9. jewelry

10. Electricity

11. my paper & stamps

12. Hot Showers

13. and the LOVE of my family!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others’ comments. It’s easy, and fun!
Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Cuttlebug Be Inspired Challenge 2: Mom's Day

Good morning girls! I hope your Wednesday is off to a wonderful start. Today the Cuttlebug Challenge blog is sponsored by My Graphico and one of the participants will win a set of digital stamps from there.

We were provided Shopping Boutique to work with this week and the prompt of creating cards for Mother's Day with a coordinating envelope. I cropped out the flower from the shopping bag, enlarged it and then printed it on red and yellow. The red was trimmed and I used the back and then embossed it with Stylized Flowers. The Yellow was cut out, embossed with Swiss Dots and then popped up with dimensionals. I also added some red and clear gems to the flower centers. My envelope flap was also embossed.

I decorated the front of the envelope by die cutting 3 flowers and then trimming the blossoms to match the flowers in the center of my big flower.

I hope you enjoyed it - it was fun to work with such a large scale image! Be sure to visit the Cuttlebug Challenge blog to view all the other creations by the design team! And have a beautiful day!!

Twinkling Tuesday: Army of All Things Boys Love

Good morning girls!! Today's Twinkling Tuesday challenge came from Nicky, Madelynn's younger brother. He loves frogs and requested cards that had a frog on them. Jessica assured us that if we didn't have frogs, he loved snails, turtles, etc just as much! I don't have a frog stamp and thought I might make one from punches but then I found this turtle stamp I picked up several months ago for my little man in the Michaels clearance bin. For just a quarter, I thought it was pretty cute!!

Here is the turtle that my little one colored while I worked on my card today. As soon as he saw it he said "just like the one at Nana's"; she has a little pond with a ceramic turtle by it. He had lots of fun throwing rocks in it!!

Here's my card - just a real quick and simple one this morning! My turtle was stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa and then colored with my Prismas and baby oil.

Here's a close-up of the cute little turtle!

I hope you'll join us this week and create something using a frog or the like! Nicky wants to see a whole ARMY of them!! (Did you know a group of frogs is called an Army....but a group of toads is called a Knot?) Please use keyword MTTSC20 when uploading at SCS or PCP. And leave a link over that the Twinkling Tuesday blog so we can check it out!!

Have a beautiful day! I've got laundry on my list for sure!!

Inky Impressions Submission

Good evening girls!! As many of you know, I was able to finally meet my new nephew in person this past weekend. He is just darling - such a charmer! And of course, he still has that sweet new baby smell. What is it about babies that just makes you want to stare at them? He was full of smiles for his Aunt Cass and my little man thought he was pretty neat too! I do think he thought the baby would play more so he was a little put off by that. It'll be fun to watch them as the little one grows though! I also have a few questions answered at the bottom of my post from my Vintage Paris card so read all the way through!

I submitted a few cards for the Inky Impressions design team call and was so excited to have made the second round. Nicole sent us all an image and a sketch to follow to create our cards. Here is my submission using this precious girl! I fell in love with the eyes when I first saw Nicole's images and that is still what draws me in - aren't they just gorgeous??

The entire image except for her hair is colored with my Prisma colored pencils and baby oil. I used Copics on her hair. I tried a new technique for the grass and sky that I am sooo happy about it! I think I spent just as much time blending those two elements as I did coloring the rest of the image. If you love to color, this is a great line - there is so much detail -- I feel just like a
n artist!!

Here is the full card:

The sketch is one I've used before - #218 from the SCS Sketch challenges. My base was run through the cuttlebug 3 times to get it all embossed. It may take an extra moment, but it adds so much I think!

Wish me luck in making the final team! No matter what, I still feel very honored to have made it this far! Ya'll know that I'll be doing the 'chair cheer' if I am fortunate enough to get to work with Nicole and her images though! If you haven't heard of this line before, take a moment to visit the blog and read all about it!

Okay - I am so happy that so many of ya'll enjoyed the Vintage Paris card I posted last week. It was a joy to make! I wanted to clear up a few things. Several of you think that I used corrugated cardboard on it. I didn't - that striped layer has been in my paper stash for a long, long time. I just crumpled it up and distressed the heck out of it before adhering it down. The main image is only ONE stamp! Gotta love that!! I did stamp it in red and then inked up just the one little bit with a black marker, cut it out and glued it over the main image to add a little pop! Just a trick to make it look like I assembled the whole collage! *wink*

I think that's it! Have a beautiful evening - or day if it's actually tomorrow when you read this!

Vintage Paris

Good morning girls!! Today I have another card created from a collaboration between Rebecca and I. She suggested the Paris theme and I added the collage style to it. Be sure to visit her and see how her card came out!



My card is loosely based on this week's sketch from Inspirational Card Sketches: #13. I had looked at it the other day and of course it had a circle and if you've been reading this blog long you know those intimidate me! But I loved the little strips on the sketch and was definitely thinking of those as I created this. You can see that I forgot about the horizontal strips but that's okay! I usually lay things out and THEN glue everything down. But since this was a collage and I didn't want to spend forever on it, I just glued as I went pretty much. I'm pretty happy with the effect!



Before I go, I am so blessed by each of you! It means the world that you would want to stop in and see what I'm up to! Each visit and every comment you leave is read and brings a smile to my face. And I love checking out your creations too - even though I don't get to visit every day, I love checking in and think that it's so wonderful to have blogging which allows us to share this passion for paper, stamps, ribbon and baubles together since we could never all be in the same place at the same time. I have been doubly blessed since last night as 2 gals have bestowed the Karma Award on me! Thanks so much girls!! I treasure them and you have lifted my spirits!!


Both June from Simply Elegant Paper Crafts and Deanne from Just Wasting Time bestowed this on me! Take a moment and go visit them - they both have such lovely cards to share!

The Karma Award: These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.
It's tough to choose only 8 but I tend to be a rule follower; I also hate making a list that's so finite but I did it. So I nominate in no particular order:

Janna

Heather

Nancy

Kim

Tricia

Spike

Anita

Eva

Cuttlebug Be Inspired Challenge 28: Home Sweet {Welcome} Home

Happy Wednesday morning!! This is my second post for today. I hope you'll scroll down to see my Flutter By card too! I'd love to hear what you think of it!

This week the theme over at Cuttlebug Challenge is HOME SWEET HOME. We were sent the most delicious papers from Marks Paper Company to work with this week. My project today features papers from the Old Fashioned Courtship Collection. It's a really cool mix of Vintage, Traditional and Contemporary designs. Not only that but it's a nice, sturdy double-sided paper equivalent in quality to Basic Grey. I'm sharing that with you because I had never heard of Marks Paper until a few weeks ago as we started working on this challenge --- maybe it's new to you too? I loved using it and I'm thrilled to have some left to play with! If you've never visited the website, I really encourage you to do so. You can see lots of stuff that their design team has done.

Here's what I came up with:

I knew that I wanted to try to create some sort of "home" image but wasn't sure what to do exactly. As I began sketching out a design, I remembered all those flower pot cards I've seen over the last few weeks and I thought it would be really neat to have a home designed with a pull feature and so my {Welcome} Home Pocket Card was born! Since my measurements are completely different from what I saw for the flower pot card, I am sharing the entire process with you!

*Note: All edges were inked with Chocolate Chip ink.

1. Cut base (or "home") from paper to measure 4" x 7 3/4"

2. Score at 3/4" and at 4 1/4"

3. Fold so that the small portion is a "mountain" fold and the other is a "valley" fold.

4. Use a border punch to add interest to the eave or trim. Since my paper is double sided I get a contrasting pattern.

5. Adhere Red Liner Tape to the sides of the large section only. This will close off your card and keep your insert where you want it. Go ahead and close together. I also used a few glue dots to adhere my trim down flat as I didn't like the look of them sticking up.

6. Cut an insert measuring 3 3/8" x 5" for your card from a contrasting paper. Cut another piece from white cardstock to measure 2 7/8" x 3 1/4" and set aside.

7. For the roof, cut paper from a third pattern to measure 1 1/2" x 5". Below you will see a simple trick to ensure that you get matching angles on both sides of your roof. This is also a great trick to use when making your own tags!

8. As illustrated below, trim the right side of the roof at a slight angle. Take the cut off portion, flip it over and line it up over the left side of the room. Trace the angle and then trim that side as well. You can see in the final pic that you have a perfectly matched angle.

9. Insert the base insert into your card and line up where you want your roof.

10. You can see that my roof allows some of the trim to peek out. Trim off the excess that is showing from the insert above the roof line. Adhere the white piece for the insert, lining it up so that is is tucked under the roof.

11. Add decorative elements to house. The doorknob is a decorative brad and the panes are just drawn by hand. Here are the measurements that I used.

Door: 1" x 2"
Upper Windows: 7/8" x 3/4"
Lower Windows: 7/8" x 1 1/4"
Chimney: 3/4" x 1 1/4" (5/8" showing)

12. Use your Cuttlebug and the Welcome Baby combo die set to create the sentiment. You can see how I just trimmed off the "baby" for my project.

Another view of the home with the sentiment showing! I think this would be great to welcome someone to the neighborhood or to even leave out for a guest to welcome them to your home.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I just love being able to share with each of you!! I hope you'll participate in the Home Sweet Home challenge this week at Cuttlebug Challenge. Marks Paper is giving away a paper pack to a lucky participant!! Use keyword CBI28 if uploading to online galleries. And don't forget to enter the link to your project in Mr Linky at the CBC blog to be entered in the giveaway!

FREEBIE: Marks Paper actually has a FREE digital pack on their website. Really cute patches that you could use for the challenge. Go HERE to get it (click on the photo and the pdf will open. Then just save, print and use!)

One last thing!!! Don't forget that next weekend is the BIG, Cuttlebug Challenge SPA RETREAT event. The 3 days will kick off with a blog hop on Friday. There are lots of projects being put together by the design team and a PLETHORA of PRIZES!! You won't want to miss it!!