MTC Continues

Ok I know that this is a little late, but life got in the way of crafting. Onto the next step. In this step Jin shows us how to shadow layer and align. Click here to read her tutorial and to watch her video. This step is a little tricky I still am gonna have to do this again to get it. Jin is wonderful in her steps, but for me the video is much easier to follow than the written instructions. Guess I am more visual. The penguin is from Lettering Delights DB Animal Occasion. Click here to get this wonderful graphic. In this tutorial Jin shows us how to make a very cute shape card. She uses this type of technique to make shape cards to put into her kids lunches to tell them she loves them. I too added these to my kids lunches. Cody loved it and Clay didn't say much about it probably cause he is older.

 This is the cute cards after I just put them together.

 This is the card I added to Clay's lunch. I used SU paper, some stickles, and some amazing stamps by The Stamps Of Life called youare2kind. Click here to check out Stephanie Barnard's stamps.

This is the inside of Clay's card. I also messed up and got ink on the block so that is the line that you see. Oh well part of crafting is making it your own.

Here is the card I made for Cody. Again I used SU papers, stickles, and stamps by The Stamps of Life.

Here is the inside of Cody's card. I just love these stamps! They can be used for so many things.

Well that is all for now. I hope to finish lesson 5 and 6 soon.

Make The Cut!

I have joined all the groupies out there for Make The Cut! What a wonderful program. I came across Jin Yong's Blog Under a Cherry Tree where she is doing an amazing series teaching the program step by step to Newbies like me. Now I haven't looked at how others are teaching this so I can only say how Jin is teaching it. She explains everything so well along with a terrific writing style. I am so glad that I came across her blog.

I changed my card just a little cause I didn't have the Cupid that she uses on hers. I chose to use a file from SVGCuts.com which is a set of 3 Valentine Truffles. Here is the link to the file. I did have a problem when it came to laying out the paper on the mat. For some reason I could not get it through my thick skull that the way it is laid out is backwards from what I thought it should be. Oh well practice makes perfect.

I used some SU papers, K & Company papers, and some paper from Michaels. The stamps used on the inside of the card are from The Stamps of Life. I also used a SU border punch on the pink paper which is slick on one side. One cool feature of MTC is that you can print text onto your cardstock. How neat! One stupid thing that I did do and will not do in the future is to print text onto slick cardstock. I assumed that it would dry over time and I even used my heat gun on it, but no luck. It still smeared a little. Lesson learned!

I am so excited to see what Jin has in store for us tomorrow. I am a day behind her, but I will catch up I hope tomorrow. Join us over at Under a Cherry Tree and learn MTC! Your Cricut and youself will appreciate it!

My Toys!

Well I got a few new toys to play with. Before we left North Dakota my twins got a hold of some scissors and cut the band on my Cricut which holds the cutting housing. I am getting that fixed, but I just couldn't wait. I scored one of the new purple Cricuts that Wal-Mart had on the day after Thanksgiving. Purple is one of my favorite colors and I just had to have it. I have waited on Cricut and other scrapbooking companies to come out with more purple stuff. It seems that everything is in pink which I do like, but purple is my choice.

   Isn't that cool the color of the lighted buttons are even a purple color!

 Close up of the flourishes

So much prettier than just a plain Cricut.

My other new toy is my Gypsy. Yes I know I said that I was not going to buy one, but I just realized how hard it is to keep changing all the carts when I want to use more that one on a design. I still haven't learned how to use it that much. Seems like I will be watching lots of YouTube videos to learn how.

Hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday. Since we are now back in TX we were able to spend it with our family even at our house this time. What a change. We usually travel to a family members house, but Kevin was on call for work so no go this time. I do have a post for tomorrow so come back to see what I am learning right now!

New House

Well we did get settled into our new house here at Dyess AFB in TX. I know that I have been neglecting my blog, but we still have things to unpack and organize. We are now in a 4 bedroom house which is wonderful now that Cody and Clay have separate rooms. This gives them their own areas to get away from the twins and each other. Our house is very nice, but only has 1 car garage and not much storage. Needless to say my truck has a home outside since our garage is full of stuff. I hope one day to get out there and organize it a little better. The back yard is lets say extremely small. When we moved it it was all dirt so I did throw down some winter Rye grass seed to get something to grow. That way I could hopefully keep some of the dirt out of the house.

One other thing that is strange is that the back of the house is where you drive up to and come in. If you want to use the front door you must find the sidewalk (which is 2 houses down) and walk around all the houses til you get to the front door. I know very weird! The only person who really sees the front of the house is the mail man since our mail box is on our front porch. Oh well they do say that back door friends are the best ones to have.

I have attached some pictures of the new house. Enjoy!

 Kitchen

 Dining Room looking out to back yard

 Living Room

View from Living Room

 Front Door

 Hallway

 Twins room

Twins Closet

 Hall Bath Room

 Hall Tub and Toilet

Storage Room AKA Scrap Room

 Hall Closet

 Clay's Room

Cody's Room (Smallest Bedroom)

 Master Sink area and tub and bath are in a separate room

 Master

 Master Closet

Laundry room

Well that is it for now. I know that was a bunch of pictures, but I wanted to show everyone what our new place looks like!

Cantrell Chrismas

I have been trying to get caught up on some of my scrapbooking. I am so far behind. I wanted to do a 1st year album of all of my kids. Well, I am still working on my oldest 1st year album and I am only at his 3rd month. I have a lot of work to do. As some of you may know I have 4 boys so getting time to craft is not easy at all. My last 2 boys are twins so they keep me on my toes.

Here is a layout that I did of Clay's 1st Christmas with the Cantrell side of the family. On this layout I used the CTMH book Cherrish to get the layout design. I also used some of their stamps and some Bazzil cardstock.

On this circle I used some ribbon to cover the circle to give it a unique look.

Time to move again!

Well Uncle Sam has decided that it is time for us to move to a new base. We will be moving to Dyess AFB in Abilene, TX. Things here are starting to get crazy before the move. One good thing about moving is that you are forced to go through  all your stuff and weed out the things that you don't need anymore. Right now our garage is a total mess. We have piles of trash, piles of things to give away, and piles of things to donate.

Another great thing about moving is that we will be moving within 3 hours of family. We have not been that close to family in 13 years. I am so excited to have my kids be able to get to know their extended family. Growing up my extended family was always together even though we lived about 7 to 8 hours apart.

We only have about 2 1/2 weeks left and time seems like it is flying. I am so ready to say bye to North Dakota and hello to Texas. The weather is gonna be alot warmer and no heavy snow to shovel. I will miss the snow, but not shoveling the driveway. Although you do get a great workout doing the driveway. I do plan on crafting sometime this weekend to finish up a few layouts and some cards. I hope to post those next week. Til next time!

Cody's Birthday Card

Cody's 8th  brithday was on 18 September so our house is very busy for September. I made his card using SU cardstock and designer paper. I also used the robot stamp from the Stamps of Life. Click on Stephanie's link (to the right) to the Stamps of Life and check out her stamps. AMAZING!

We wanted to give the boys something that they have wanted for a while. As you guessed it we got both of the boys a new guitar. Cody is left handed so finding him a guitar was not easy. We had to order it so that is why the card is an I owe you card. The guitar didn't make it for his birthday, but arrived just a few days after. Cody seems to love his new guitar and we hope to get him lessons soon.