Is a fun and fabulous new digi-kit from my dear friend and creative genius, Kristine, of Designs by Kristine:

I really really love the richness of the colors in this kit – so, I paired it with a couple of templates from another uber-talented designer – Bunny Cates to create these:

Credits are super simple: Designs by Kristine’s Natalie’s Day and Bunny Cates’ Bracket Album templates.  The background paper in the Imagine layout is one of my all time FAVORITES!

Do you want to know what else we’ve been up to? It’s called reclaim our house – aka the Great Toy Round-Up! We listed Nadya’s crib on Craigslist as she hasn’t ever used it, and although it was a convertible one, we already have a full-size bed in her room, so we didn’t need that option.  After only  a day and a half, we had a buyer. So, after a quick trip to Target (thanks for the gift card Mom and Dad) – her room transformed from this:  To this (and my living room regained some semblance of order): We’re still waiting on a couple of stuffed animal nets, but other than that, we’re pretty well done.  We’re watching craigslist carefully for a twin over full bunk bed or one of those Doll House theme beds that will allow for a twin bed on top and a full underneath.  Too bad my dear husband doesn’t have a table saw or much spare time– I found a fabulous website that has awesome plans and an even better blog full of ideas – I’m thinking a little barn themed bunk/loft bed would be perfect! LOL Plus, I’m certain I could build some of the bookcases/cubes Ana has posted plans for here, here, and here – and be better than the particle board and cardboard that I can buy at WalMart – oh Micki – you’re my inspiration here! Ah, the stuff dreams are made of – and like I really need another craft/project/hobby!

Ok, I’m off to do laundry – such fun! Have a great day!

And available at Cocoa’s Studio store at My Grafico!  I had the privilege of working with this new SVG cutting set – a let me tell you – it was EASY! The files cut beautifully (thanks again Mom for loaning me your baby bug).  Cocoa has included JPG printables and cutting templates for those that don’t have a Cricut or SCAL/Make The Cut.  The printables are full color and adorable – perfect for other cutting systems (think print and cut with your KNK, Wishblade, Gazelle, Silhouette, etc). The JPG templates offer further customization – bring them into your favorite editing software and use them with digital papers to create one of kind items!  FABULOUS!!!  Ok, so you want to see what I did – here ya go: This card was a breeze to assemble! First I cut the adorable bear set from Confetti Vanilla CS using the SVG cutting files in SCAL and my Mom’s baby Bug. I wanted to add some texture, so I coated the bear in Versamark and then applied Heat N Stick Powder.  I melted the powder with my heat gun and applied brown flock (I should have heated the powder a bit longer so that more of the flock adhered) and then reheated to set it.  I used Taffy and Moonlight Smooch (check out Bunny’s Stamping Studio – love the goods and she’ll try to order anything you need – just ask) on the mouth, ears, nose and heart cutouts and then glued them on to my bear body. I colored the eyes and added the smile with my Spica and Sakura glitter pens.  I used my SU Regal Rose marker to color the balloon, then coated it in Versamark and Heat N Stick Powder.  This time I wanted bling instead of fuzz, so I used Doodlebug Design’s Sugar Coating Bubblegum Glitter over the Heat N Stick powder.  I painted the balloon highlight with Moonlight Smooch and glued it in place.  I was going to cut off the “string” that came with the balloon but found I liked the swirl shape, so I wrapped it in white embroidery floss from my stash and viola – a string that has the paper shape but a more realistic appearance! Hooray! Before Christmas I has snagged a couple of packages of DCWV glitter cards from the Hobby Lobby clearance rack, so I used one of those cards with the largest of the Labels 8 nesties to create my shaped card base(which means I can enter TSG’s challenge – woohoo).  For the mat, I found this fabulous swirled and embossed paper in my DCWV The Sweet Stack mat stack, so I used the 2nd largest of the Label 8 nesties to cut the mat – you could do the same thing in Cricut using SCAL if you’d rather or if you don’t have the Labels nesties, etc. I used ultra thin glue dots to adhere the mat and base as my mono adhesive doesn’t always handle glitter well. For the bear and balloon I used Dimensional Dots and Ultra Thin glue Dots.  The mini pearls are from my stash. I think the card is adorable – perfect for Valentine’s Day, or in my case, a little girl’s birthday! 

I’d better run – it’s grocery shopping and errand day. So we’ll be heading to  my “favorite” place – WalMart. Have a good one!

Where does the time go? It seems like just yesterday I was redecorating my blog and getting the rest of my website online and now it’s time to throw off the Holiday digs and create something new…  I had quite the time with the image map in my blog header – thankfully Bunny was able to help me out as the tech support guys of the software I was using were not at all helpful!  While we’re on the subject of new, I have some “news” too.

I’m looking forward to the coming year – at least most of it.  There are some new and exciting events in my future; though I can’t go into all of the details yet, one of them will be focusing on incorporating my paper crafts into my website and offering items for sale – kind of Etsy style.  So, at some point I’ll be joining the ranks of my super-talented friends Bunny (The Lil Stamping Studio) and Suzanne (Crafting Connection) in the realm of ecommerce.  In preparation for that adventure, and to help my friend Suzanne a bit (I’m far from an ecommerce service provider, but I did help her get her website online), I have installed ZenCart as well as a Shopping Cart application from Coffee Cup.  I’m running into an issue with inventory control with the Coffee Cup software in that their software isn’t tied to a database, so it doesn’t offer any sort of automatic control – which means if I have only 1 or 2 of an item, I could end up selling more than I have in stock since the software doesn’t deduct purchases from the inventory count – not a big deal for digital products, but a definite pain for me!  ZenCart isn’t bad as far as cart software goes, but it’s not as easy to use – hence a bit of a learning curve for me. I’m always up for a challenge, but I don’t want to kill my creative spirit as my time, like everyone else’s, is limited and Nadya will remain my top priority!

All of that to say, I’m really excited about 2010 and I hope everyone else has something exciting or rewarding to look forward to as well. May you have a fabulous New Year!