Look what came from the wonderful folks in little brown shorts (aka UPS)?

My new Cricut Expression E2!!! I ordered Monday night at 5pm HST and it arrived by the end of the day on Thursday. I'm officially a HSN fan for at least the next five minutes as I was not charged for express shipping, only standard shipping, which I attributed to being in Hawaii (and thus not special enough to get free shipping). Before the end of the official launch on Tuesday (and even well before the E2 sold out, I think around dinner time EST on Tuesday), I had received the shipping notice that my new E2 was on the way!


Here it is out of the brown shipping box. Look for more pictures to come tomorrow morning. If you can believe it, all I've done so far is take it out of the box to look at the FOUR new pre-installed cartridges.


Here the mini image sheet. For whatever reason, I'm having trouble grabbing image sheets for the other cartridges. The Cricut Decal cartridge has a whole line of Cricut bugs which are unbelievably cute and will definitely be making an appearance in vinyl very soon. The Just a Note cartridge was designed by Cosmo Cricket (a maker of yummy paper collections and other popular scrapbooking products), and has some neat tri-fold cards on it.

Thank you so much, Maryann!

Happy Easter Bunny Cards

Good morning, everyone! Happy Easter!

If you're still wondering what to serve for Easter dinner or what to do with all those ham leftovers, hop over to my food blog for some ideas.

Despite my best of intentions, I ran out of time and made a whopping two Easter cards this year. I did mail them on Thursday, so since the federal government no longer observes Good Friday, there's a decent chance that they made their way to their destinations. I used the Create a Critter bunny that is just too cute. I considered, and actually cut out, bunnies from the Doodlecharms cartridge because they look a little like the popular marshmallow bunnies, but when it came to assembling the card, they just didn't work. Featured in the first card is the Martha Stewart Garden Trellis punch, which took awhile to get to me after I ordered it nearly a month ago, but it's perfect for those garden cards, so I highly recommend it.

Here's the cards:




Materials
Create a Critter (bunny)
Simply Charmed (eggs)
Doodlecharms (basket)
MyMindsEye Stella & Rose Gertie (pattern paper)
Stampin Up (cardstock for base, colored and white is scraps)
Papertrey Ink (twine)
Misc ribbon (I think it's from a local store in HI)
Distress Ink - Antique Linen
Martha Stewart Garden Trellis Punch
Sizzix embossing folderc (Diamond & Tropical Paisley set)
My Pink Stamper Happiest Moments Stamps (Happy Easter)
Basic Gray Easter stamps (inside stamps shown below)

Some closeups and insides

TGF Flirty Anya Thank You Card

Happy Sunday, everyone! I wanted to share this card before I put it in the mail this week. I love this little lady from the Greeting Farm. The weekend I organized all my Greeting Farm stamps (see that post here), I knew that I wanted to make cards with the Flirty Anya stamp. She's so bright and cheerful. I was also super excited to use my new Sew Easy from We R Memory Keepers which I hope to use often. I ordered it back in January from an Ebay dealer when all my normal online sources were out of stock. Now I understand that its back in stock at most places, so I might have to look into getting more accessories for it. Basically, it allows you to do stitching without a sewing machine and without worrying about evenly spacing your hand stitches. Very neat. Anyway, have a great Sunday and here's my card:





Materials
The Greeting Farm - Flirty Anya
Copic markers
Paperytrey Ink cardstock and ribbon
DCWV Summer Designs matstack
Cake Basics Cricut cart for the scalloping
Stampin Up - So Happy For You stamp collection
bling and twine from my stash

My Pink Stamper Anything Birthday Challenge

Okay, this post is nearly a week overdue, but if it counts, I made these cards over the weekend. Somehow time slipped away and thus am only getting around to posting them now. This post is linked to the My Pink Stamper Anything Birthday Challenge. When I saw the challenge, I knew I had to use my new Life's a Party cartridge and one of the new My Pink Stamper stamp sets. Surprisingly, I thought I would use the Sweetest Cupcakes set because there are a lot of baking-themed fun phrases, but the size of the birthday stamp from Fabulous Phrases set just fit the bill.

Here are the cards I made, all A2 sized:



Materials
Stampin Up cardstock
Basic Grey "Life of the Party" pattern paper - this collection has a wood theme, which is neat
My Pink Stamper Fabulous Phrases stamp set
Martha Stewart Happy Birthday Punch
Stampin Up Scalloped Edge Punch
Glossy Accents
Misc twine, gems, ribbon

More pictures . . .















Head back to My Pink Stamper to check out other fantastic birthday cards.

The Greeting Farm Collection

Just like my Cricut, which got me into obsessive paper crafting (rather than just once a year cards), the Greeting Farm got me into stamping. I am still far from an expert colorer and have dozens of stamps that have never graced the face of a project, but I love collecting them! Be sure to check out my wishlist, before you go.



Here's the list of my collection so far, colored pictures to come:

Anya and Ian
Fancy Anya - finally bought last week!
Flapper Anya
Fleur Anya
Flirty Anya
Hippie Anya
Oh Boy! Ian
Rain Snow Shine (teenage Anya) - just got this yesterday!
Rockstar Anya
My Guy Ian (teenage Ian) - just got this yesterday!
Rescue Ian
Rockstar Anya

Cheeky Cherry
Cheeky Rockabilly
Cheeky Mate

Oliver and Amelia Collections
OA Journey
OA - Just for You

Others
Savannah

Wish List
Cheeky Chat
Cheeky Cherry Pie
Cheeky Glamour (a Marilyn Monroe kind of gal)
Surfer Anya

Martha Stewart Punch Collection

Laura from Following the Paper Trail got me (and her many other viewers) hooked on Martha Stewart punches. For me, I'm hooked specifically on edge punches, which you use to make decorate borders and strips for cards and scrapbook pages. I can cute some of these images using my Cricut, but often the more intricate images won't cut cleanly unless I constantly have a new blade. Plus, with most of my cartridges, I'd have to use my Gypsy to get a border look that will fit my cards.

Yeah, I'm making excuses to justify my addiction. Here's a shot of the ones I got for my birthday.



The list:
(Pictures to come later)

Arch Lattice
Botanical Scallops
Doily Lace
Drippy Goo
Flower Patch
Garden Gate
Happy Birthday
Holidays - Spiderweb
Iron Gate
Pansy
Scallop Dots
Scroll Lace
Swirling Lace
Train

This is my latest trick. It's similar to a paint chip collection and it's a good way to use up scraps. Each strip is about 5.5", just the width of an A2 card.

Peachy Keen Stamps

Peachy Keen Stamps is another company that came to my attention through the compatibility of its products with Cricut cartridges such as Create a Critter and Everyday Paper Dolls. Their best-selling lines are various faces for any and every di ecut you could imagine. Something I really like is that they are expanding into the childish, oval/dumpling-type face, rather than the strictly round sets. These work well with the animal cuts, as well as the Once Upon a Princess cartridge (which I don't have yet) and really make you want to pinch some cheeks. They feature a bunch of other cute images besides faces, too. I only have a few of those, most of which were Christmas or holiday themed.

For now, I'm posting the product image so you see what you get, but will hopefully replace it with samples of my work. Hop over the Peachy Keen Stamps to check out their samples. If you type the product name into their search box (or even in Google), you'll go right to the product page.

Face Stamps
PK-754 Critter Faces SET A Medium


PK-490 Everyday Character Face Assortment


PK-573 Basic Paper Doll Faces


PK-500 Snow Cutie Face Assortment


PK-640 Princess Face Assortment


PK-643 Boy Mates 1 1/8"


PK-450 Wide Eyed Kids Face Assortment


Other sets
PK-408 Gingerbread Doll Set


PK-416 Lorie and Al Gingerbread Set


PK-407 Ginger Baby Oven Mitt


Check out Peachy Keen Stamps!

My Pink Stamper Stamps

At the moment, I have 7 sets of Robyn's (aka My Pink Stamper) stamps. Originally designed to coordinate with Cricut images, most of the says are clever little puns ("punny") and tend to be more fun than stock greetings like "Happy Birthday" and "Have a Great Day," although she has those too. Like all the other folks on the internet, she advertises them as "high quality photo-polymer." I must admit that they are thicker than many of my old Hero Art stamps and definitely more so than generic acrylic stamps that I have. Still, for me, the big selling point is the cleverness of the compilations. You can check out all her stamps on her products page here. I have bought or received most of the sets in my collection from Custom Crops, however a couple have come from Hallmark Scrapbook and Crafts to Favor. I recently discovered that they are also available on Amazon from CrafteCorner's Amazon store, which is awesome because I could use my Amazon gift certificates.

As of now, I have:

Fruit and Veggie Puns


Punny-licious
- She released this stamp set with the Create a Critter cartridge and it was a HUGE hit that was widely imitated around the net. It is possible that she copied the idea first, possibly from Provocraft who includes numerous puns in their word art. Nonetheless, this stamp set is awesome and its popularity spawned a bunch of others around the 'net.


More Punny-licious
- Following the success of Punny-licious, this was her next set of funny phrases that go great with multiple cartridges.


Even More Punny-licious


Spooky Puns
-I made more Halloween cards than ever last year with this set.


Winter Punnies
- This is a great Winter set, not really Christmas-y at all.


Happiest Moments
- Great all-occasion set.


In the mail, ordered from Craftecorner via Amazon, are:

Sweetest Cupcakes


Fabulous Phrases


Sweet Baby


Buggy Punnies

Organizing and Cataloging My Craft Supplies

I went on a total craft shopping binge for my birthday, similar to what I did around Christmas with all the new Cricut goodies I got. Especially since I'm now collecting smaller things like stamps, I figured it was time to start making lists to stave off getting duplicates, or at least too many duplicates. I will probably post these lists as new blog posts, just so you can see my horrible excess, and then make them permanent resource pages (mostly for me) somewhere on this blog. The lists I'm planning to make, in no particular order, include:

My Pink Stamper stamps
(I have 7 sets now and just ordered 4 more)


Peachy Keen Stamps
(I don't think I have too many sets, but many, many faces)


The Greeting Farm
(I'm really getting hooked on these!)


Copic Markers
(I started a color chart early on, but already got at least one double. These alcohol-ink markers are the best pens on the market for coloring stamps.)


Cricut Cartridges
(These are multiplying bunnies. All those rock bottom Christmas sales!)


Ranger Distress Ink
(I only had 6, until last weekend....)


Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist
(These are so yummy! Makes me want to do more altered projects.)


Cuttlebug Embossing Folders
(Almost as addicting as Cricut cartridges.)


Martha Stewart Punches
(Oh man, I just hit double digits this weekend!)


Other stuff:
CC Design Stamps
Tim Holtz Embossing Folders
Other punches?

Check back soon!