Fun and Mental Changes

Well, dang it! I missed the cut off for the challenge. But boy was this one fun!!! So I thought I would post it anyway. I've been following Cuttlebug Challenge for a little while now and never posted a project, but the latest challenge sparked an inspiration..... two hours ago.... hahahahahaha! After completing the project, I went to Cuttlebug Challenge to find out how to upload it and there it was... "by 7 p.m. EST." Yep, I surely missed it. But that's ok, because this one NEEDS to be shared with or without a challenge, I just love it that much! But for the rest of you out there needing a little creative spark, check out Cuttlebug Challenge for some great inspiration.... maybe I'll see you at next week's challenge! ;) Here are the directions for my Sweet Poison Treat Bag . I used a sheet of 12" X 12" Rusty Pickle's Pirate Princess paper and cut a bag from my Plantin School Book Cricut cartridge (using the 'fit to page' on the Cricut Exp

Thank you to everyone who sent in a dessert recipe for the Healthy Halloween Dessert Give Away! It was so much fun recreating the healthy desserts! I just got off the phone with Heather Frey of SmashFit.com and the winner is..... Jessica Devenny!!!!! Congratulations Jessica! Please email me with a shipping address and shirt size to send your prizes. Your recipe was WONDERFUL and you deserve the prize haul!!! I also LOVED the healthy alternatives that you included in your recipe. Please stay tuned folks as Jessica's recipe will appear on SmashFit.com ! A special "Thank You" to Heather for being our guest judge and for the generous t-shirt donation. *** Note: Jessica, your t-shirt will ship directly from SmashFit.com, so don't forget to include that shirt size.

The winner of Fun And Mental Changes' Halloween Healthy Dessert Give Away will be announced shortly..... But while you're waiting, here's a little eye candy for ya! The best kind of candy us healthy eaters can have... hahahahahaha! Enjoy! You can click on the pic to enlarge. These craft projects are a result of my own blog give away winnings. We can all thank the lovely ladies over at Cutting Above for inspiring all of this SUPER FUN eye candy! LOL! All you crafters out there... check out Cutting Above, they are so great!

Today's post is brought you by the letter "F"... as in FREAKIN GREAT!!! I did another color wash (I LOVE that technique) like the one I did for the cd cover . But this time I also embossed the paper while it was still slightly wet. Click on pic to enlarge. The emboss turned out amazing and this card is just beyond beautiful. I kept everything else on the card monochromatic so that the paper could stay the focal point. I will recap the steps for the background paper. I started with a sheet of Stampin Up's confetti cardstock. I stamped it with a Tim Holtz "Postale" stamp in grey ink. I then did a color wash using Ranger's Adirondack Pearl Acrylic paints mixed with water in Slate with a smidge of Terra Cotta (I actually soak a sponge applicator in water and then add a pea size amount of paint directly to the sponge and then smear, smudge and splash away! There's no wrong way to color wash. The messier you are the nicer the outcome. Be sure to cover your

Mica is just one of those weird craft items that you just cannot possibly explain so that others understand... "it's layered rock that you can cut with scissors and stamp on that peels in sheets..." Oh brother! It's better that I show you. For this card, I took a "tile" of Mica and stamped a Tim Holtz Eiffel Tower image on it with StazOn ink. The beauty of Mica is that it's flat and super easy to work with, but at the same time it's grainy and sometimes veiny (being that it's a rock) which adds quite a bit of texture to whatever you're adding it to without adding the bulk. My favorite feature of Mica is that it looks so much like the old-time antique film that it's my number one go-to for anything I want to make look filmy or antiquey. So is anyone else tired of me creating new words by adding the letter "y"? HAHAHAHAHA! Ok, I'm done. On to the rest of the "how-to's"... I'm on a roll! I made the paper und

Tomorrow is the deadline for the Halloween Give-Away. Be sure to click on the link and get your recipes in... there's still time! A couple of really great items have been added to the winner's goodie bag, so get em in. Here's the link for more info: http://fundamentalchange.blogspot.com/2009/09/halloween-2009-give-away.html

Well, as many of you know, I won a FREE Gypsy. I was super excited. A couple of days before my name was drawn, I joined the Cricut.com message board to try and gather all the info I could on the use of this wonderful new machine that was to be used with the Cricut. You see, I had heard about the Gypsy, the contest I entered and about the HSN launch of this new product from all the blogs of Provo Craft's (the makers of the Cricut and the Gypsy) devoted and loyal fans screaming about this anticipated product. September 23rd (the night of the launch) there were MANY video streams of fans and followers recording themselves WAITING for the product to air at 12:01 a.m. on the 24th. Women were getting together at each other's houses for all night parties, and joining online chats and message boards... it was seriously crazy to me, but the excitement was contagious and I caught the "bug" days before when I entered the contest to win the Gypsy. So there I was waiting for the G

Never underestimate the heart of a volunteer. You see, the volunteer is on a personal mission and is present and participating out of want, not need. A volunteer is service in it's purest form and to discount a volunteer means that you are putting aside the best of the best. I watched a Beth Moore Bible study the other day on TV and she was talking about witnessing a room full of volunteers. I belly laughed HARD as she recounted how these volunteers were all elderly and not a one of them complained about ANY job that needed to be done. I laugh as I think about employees that I have witnessed (yes, including myself) going to work, complaining about this or that and, "Oh I'm soooo tired!" And then to hear Beth Moore describe these strong, healthy, vibrant, elderly but youthful volunteers, was really something quite funny. But it's a funny thing about our society.... volunteers (for some weird reason) have a bad rap. Why do I hear, "They're JUST a volunteer.

So I have a friend who recently moved and with all this creativity flowing over the course of Cutting Above's Gypsy give-away, I thought I would use that inspiration to send some love to my dear friend. Yep, I SUDDENLY understand why everyone's so excited about the Gypsy. I went through 1 WHOLE piece of 12 x 12 paper to cut ONE frame that would fit this card! Pretty annoying! I envisioned designing the ENTIRE project on the Gypsy screen while I was waiting for my car to get serviced and had to sigh at the imagined "hills are alive" moment in my head. I CANNOT WAIT to have that moment in real life, where I return home, hit cut and everything is perfectly proportioned and cut right on the mat the first time. That by itself is going to be crazy good. Now, I've been told, that you can do the same "planning" on the design studio. I do not have design studio so I'm going to have to take everyone's word, but from what I HAVE heard, the Design Studio is

I WON THE GYPSY!!! I cannot believe it!!! If you don't know what a Gypsy is, here is a GREAT video to show what it does for craft projects made with a Cricut machine.... click here ! So, I got off the phone with BettyBee and Maggie (who, by the way said that I could swipe this pic) of http://cuttingabove.blogspot.com/ a little while ago! I honestly don't know what to say... I'm speechless. That HAS GOT to be a first EVER!!! But the words that DO come to mind are "thankful" and "gratitude" and "I'm oh so honored!" I had the pleasure of speaking to these incredible ladies for a while today and I want to tell you that they are REALLY good people! They were so genuinely happy for me I almost started crying! And they were quick and generous with applauding the paper crafts they saw on my blog.... yes gang, they did check out our links, they said that they started three days before.... and I'm so blessed to have had the opportunity even to

The CD case you see here will one day house a photo compilation as a wedding gift. But for now, it just needs to dry! :) In the meantime, I'll share with you how it's done! I used my FAVORITE Cricut cartridge and cut out "Once Upon a Time" as the introduction to a lucky couple's fairytale. I did the title cut in purple and the shadow cut in navy and then tapped the sides with brown cat eye ink to make the title stand out. The BEST part of this project though was the MESS I made making the background paper. That's what I'm excited to feature today. If you click on the pic to enlarge you will see that the background is slightly shimmery. That was an added bonus to doing this project and one that I didn't expect AT ALL. Here's the low down. Knowing that I was going to be wanting a "crinkled", aged effect, I picked a paper that was slightly thinner than regular cardstock because I'm going to get it wet and the thinner stuff will dry with

This happy holidays card started as a cover page to a chip board "Organic Recipe" mini book I was planning on putting together. I still am going to complete the mini recipe book (as it is a Christmas gift for someone I love), but this particular card turned out so amazingly beautiful that the whole entire project segued into the greeting card you now see and I axed the word poultry that I cut from the From My Kitchen Cricut cartridge. Although I have been incredibly inspired as of late with the release of the Provo Craft Gypsy and the Gypsy give away being sponsored by Cutting Above (TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO ENTER THE GIVE AWAY!!!), I don't really send out Christmas cards. I prefer to send handmade Thanksgiving cards. In fact, I'm KNOWN for my Thanksgiving cards. I didn't send out Thanksgiving cards one year and got MULTIPLE phone calls letting me know just how loved those handmade cards really are.... I'll include a sampling at the end of this post of previo

Sometime back I received pieces of a Stampin Up stamp set that I've never really used and couldn't throw away. Right after I got my Cricut machine, I made the cutest paper lion from the sampler cartridge I got with my Cricut . I didn't know what to do with this lion but I kept him. A few months back I made a welcome sign that I intended to cut at 4 inches and forgot to turn the size dial on my Cricut ; I ended up cutting a pretty shabby looking welcome sign at 1 1/2 inches instead.... I saved it. The other day I cut out the silhouette of a sun and (of course) saved the scraps. So here is today's projects.... I lovingly call this one Bits and Pieces. This card is the reason that scrappers save EVERYTHING!!! I bought the brand new Everyday Paper Dolls cartridge at Michaels Craft Store a couple of weeks ago when the cartridges were on sale for #39.99. That's right folks! I got one of the BRAND NEW cartridges for $39! I couldn't believe it. And when I opened up t