Recent Projects, Great Find at Michaels, and a Mini Haul from Michaels

Hello, friends! And welcome new followers/friends!!!

I wanted to share some of the projects I have actually managed to start AND finish recently.

There are a bunch of birthdays coming up in my close circle in November, so I made a bunch of Birthday cards to be ready to send out! Here's three of them.

I posted some of these little people while I was working on them, but I actually got them all completed! These are made from clearanced coasters at Michaels (ended up being $.30 for 8 of them( and Paper Dolls made with Paper Doll Dress Up. I am going to give them as take-home gifts for our Thanksgiving dinner guests!

This is a box that I made to keep index cards of planned projects or pages that I want to make. I see so many great ideas in magazines or blogs, so I needed a place to keep track of them. I made it by covering a recipe box (that was $1.00 at Michaels) with paper and ribbon and welded and cut out the word "Projects" with my Gypsy for the front. It's not perfect, but I'm quite proud of how it turned out!!!

This is a card I made for my stepdaughter to celebrate her good report card! She just got her first HIGH SCHOOL report card and she did very well in all (but one) of her classes and managed to bring up the one low grade within a week to an A! I made it using the new Smiley downloaded cart on my Gypsy.

This is a random Christmas card that I made as a trial run to see how it would turn out. The Santa is from Winter Frolic (I think). Don't ask why it's missing two edges. LOL! I said it was a trial, right???

Here is a sort of "get well" card that I made for my brother-in-law's father. He had to have an emergency quadruple bypass the other day and is finally home and recovering. He's a really nice guy and will get a kick out of the sentiment on this card!

Here is a photo of my haul from Michaels today. Some great coupons and great sales there this week (if this is stuff that you need!) The thin ribbon is 5 for $1.00. The jingle bells were $5.99 and then 40% off. The Christmas stamps is actually a set of two sheets of stamps for $9.99 and I used a 50% off coupon. The googly eyes weren't on sale, but I needed them. The punch was 40% off! I will be going back on Thursday or Friday because I have a coupon for 20% off the whole order including sale items!! There's some really cute holiday-themed DCWV stacks that I want, but when I can save another $3.00 on them, I can wait 2 more days!!

And while browsing around Michael's, I literally ran into something new and exciting! I struggled to find the Pink ATG when I first wanted one and finally found one (purely luck). Many of my online blogging friends are still struggling to find them, BUT if all Michaels stores are doing this, look no further!

It was an entire end cap of Scotch adhesives and more ATG guns than I have ever seen in one place!!! It was along the wall, not along the main aisle, so check your local stores if you're looking for one!!!

I hope that everyone is doing well! I'm off to work on some more projects and layouts!

The weeks sure do fly by, don't they....

...And I haven't posted anything!

Where have I been and what have I been up to? Well, I'd love to say LOTS OF CRAFTING, but I have to be honest and say a little crafting, a little laziness, and a LOT of job hunting!

Since my last post more than a week ago, I have spent some time revamping my blog, figuring out how to post via my phone, and organizing my scrapping room a little more. On the more personal side of my life, my cell phone was dying so I had to get a new one (hellllooo iPhone4 heaven! Thank you, dear husband!), sold my old one on eBay, decorated my house for Halloween, and have been spending lots of time talking to my family and catching up with everyone. It's been quite nice!

My aunt was visiting Florida a few weeks ago and I spent some wonderful time with her in St. Augustine and got some great hands-on time with my camera! Some photos from that day are below:

The Old City Gate

Castillo de San Marcos, The Fort

Mission of Nombre de Dios, Statue of Father Francisco Lopez and The Great Cross

I also debated going back to PA for a crafts festival that my sister has at the store that she inherited from my grandmother, but that also fell on the one year anniversary of that grandmother's passing, so I spent a few days here a little under the weather thinking about her and missing her.

And as for the job search, still no bites and no successes, but I am still trying to remain optimistic that the right thing will come along for me when the time is right!

Now, on to the happiness of life that is CRAFTING!

I have obtained a few new toys and accessories to play with in the past few days as Christmas came early to Carol's house! With the promotion that Provocraft is running currently for the Gypsy, and dearest husband knowing that I have been itching to get my hands on one of these for a few months now, he decided that Santa would have to deliver this gift a little early, so the other night, we went out and got it at my neighborhood Michael's. And can I tell you..... it's WONDERFUL!!! It truly is so much more than I ever thought it would be! I have already designed and made more since I've gotten this than I have in a couple of months! I love sitting in the living room or laying in bed and setting up my page to be cut and then going in the scrap room for a few hours and actually getting SO much done! I think I was slowing down on my pages and cards due to frustration of having to change paper on the mat so many times for one little project. Now it seems SO simple! And I can't wait to get the 6 free carts on November 1st!!!!

So Gypsy was #1!

The same night we got the G at Michael's, I found a 50% off MS products coupon that was still good in my purse, so I picked up the Pink Martha Stewart Bone Folder and got it for around $4! It's so pretty and it has little bling on it!!!

I thought that's about all I'd be getting for a little while, but.... I'd be fibbing!

Today, I had to run some errands and decided to wander around Ross for a while since I haven't been in that store for some time. I didn't know they had any scrapbooking supplies, but they DO! I picked up a box of stuff and I'll have to do a video to show you all the stuff that was inside of it for $9.99! I was ecstatic with that and after reading some more of the blogs that I follow, apparently, each box has different stuff in it, sooooo, I might be going out for a few more this week! Video to follow!

After I got home, I started to work on some more projects and came up with a very cute idea for some take-homes for my Thanksgiving guests! I made some Pilgrims and Indians from the Paperdoll Dress Up cartridge and then covered the coasters that we had picked up at M's back on October 11th with some harvest-theme colored paper and Modge Podged the figures on them! They turned out so cute! I have some more to make, but I like how they are turning out so far, so I will have to go get more coasters this week. (Maybe I should inquire about working at Michael's? LOL!) Here's what they look like:

And then I finished up the Halloween cards that I needed to send this week. They were both made using Happy Hauntings, the MS Drippy Goo Punch, the MS Halloween stamps, and the MS Embossing powders. This was my first time playing with embossing powders and a heat gun, but I love the effect and how they turned out! Here they are:

I need to be better about posting my projects as I go! This is a lot for one post, isn't it?

Well, I hope no one fell asleep while reading and I promise I'll try to be better about posting more regularly!

Happy Crafting!

I'm a spoiled wife!

I cannot express how blessed I am to have the husband and family that I do and how much he tends to spoil me!

My DH has been working very hard at his job lately and I have been trying to be as supportive as I can of his long hours and sour mood. I have also been in a funk lately for the lack of finding a job. This weekend, for the first time in a very long time, my husband and I were able to spend some quality time together. During some of that QT, we ended up at Joann Fabric. Well.... Joann's was having a great deal on Cricut cartridges this week. I had been admiring some of the carts and been sharing the creations of some of the bloggers and message board people that I follow. He knew how much I have been wanting some of the carts and to my utter surprise, I came home with 3 new cartridges! Seems like, "Wow... how much money can one person blow on cartridges in one spot?" Well, this week (until the 14th actually), all Cricut carts were on sale from $89.99 to $33.99. So, all 3 cost us $101.97 when they normally would have been $269.97! We also picked up some neat cardstock and a paper puncher that I didn't have. In total, we saved $170+ from what the regular prices were. Not bad for an unexpected trip!

The new carts that I picked up yesterday are:

Designer's Calendar

Winter Frolic

Happy Hauntings

Technically, DH was going to buy me four, but this Joann's was out of Mini Monsters. Oh well! So now, there are only three more carts on my wishlist (for now)! I'm hoping that for my upcoming birthday or Christmas, I'll get Mini Monsters, Simply Charmed, and/or From My Kitchen.

Earlier in the week, I had stopped by the store and picked up two other cartridges:

Paper Doll Dress Up

"Just Because" Cards

I can't wait to dig into them this week and see what I come up with! Because of this unplanned splurge, it's going to be a hang-low and keep it cool in the house kinda week! :-) But that's okay with me! Projects will be posted this week!