Annual Christmas Card Contest

Somehow, I forgot to post the picture from our annual Christmas card making contest. Shelly's family, my family, and the family of another dear friend get together for a little holiday merriment, and one of the things we always do is have a contest to see who can make the best Christmas card. This year, the winner was picked by my 12 year-old son, Grant. We had a lot of fun, and got a lot of cards made, too.

Holiday Greetings/Karber Challenge

Even though I rant about the Christmas-Industrial complex, I actually quite enjoy the tradition of Christmas cards. I fear when the people my parents' age are gone, the Christmas card will become a thing of the past- I know of very few people my age or younger who really get into the exchange of cards. As a scrapper, I feel compelled to make at least a few of my cards- cards for people I know will actually appreciate the time and effort that went in to making them. Here are a few of my last-minute efforts. For the most part, I used materials I had on hand- old Christmas stickers I wanted to use up, cuts from the KC Croppers cut swap, scraps left over from our big card making bonanza at our house hop party last weekend. In other words, nothing fancy, just fun!

For the Karber challenge, I used their "cups" digi stamp, colored it, cut it out, and made an easel card. Simple, but fun. I really love Karber's rubber and digi stamps- so kawaii! If you buy anything from them now until the middle of next month, you will be eligible for their Grand Calibur giveaway!

Speaking of giveaways, remember our Cartridge giveaway. Just become a follower, leave a comment on the original post, and when we reach 350 followers, we'll choose a winner. Leave a comment on this or any other post up until we hit 350 for another chance to win!

Happy Birthday, Jesus! Blog Hop!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESUS!!!

Thanks for joining us for our
Happy Birthday Jesus Blog Hop.

Today, we are worshiping the King & celebrating the
TRUE REASON FOR THE SEASON!

This Hop is Hosted by Tina from Crafty and Green
If you've hopped along from The Fantastic Christel, then YOU
are in the right place!! If you are just joining me from your dashboard,
or reading this via email, please be sure to start at the beginning with Tina
(We wouldn't want you to miss a THING!!)

Thank you for Celebrating with us Today!
In the midst of all the hustle and bustle of the Holidays,
we have to remember the one we really celebrate and love and who is the
TRUE REASON FOR THE SEASON!
Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

BLOG CANDY:
There is TONS of Great Candy in this Hop.
We have 7 Sponsors for this hop with FANTASTIC PRIZES!!!!
1. Jen's Digi Stamps - http://www.jensdigistamps.com/ (Gift Certificate)
2. Michelle's Scrapbooking & More- http://michellescrap.com/ (Gift Certificate)
3. Heather Flaherty w/ {ippity} - http://www.iheartippity.com/ (Gift Certificate)
4. Papercrafting World - http://www.facebook.com/www.papercraftingworld.com (Gift Certificate)
5. Scraptastical Kreations- http://scraptasticalkreations.com/ (Gift Certificate)
6. K Andrews Designs- http://www.kandrewdesigns.com/ (Stamp Set)
7. My Family Keepsakes- http://myfamilykeepsakes.com/ (12x12 print/page)

What You Have to Do To Be in the Running for these Fabulous Prizes:

1. The ladies have all worked very hard on their projects,
so PLEASE comment on every stop along the way on BOTH days.

2. Please Become a Follower of CraftyAnd Green http://craftyandgreen.blogspot.com


For my projects...
I created two Christmas cards from printables from Aimee Asher website.

I printed and cut the printable card that I purchased from Aimee Asher website.
Then I inked the edges of every pc. with a light brown ink.
Once dry, I adhered the printout onto a heavy darker cardstock.
I pop dotted the pieces to stand out more. Then I added brads to the wording.

I printed the inside of the card and adhered it to the inside of my
cut pc. of dark cardstock... then I cut around the edges to give it a layered look.

Here is the back side of the card.
This card also came with a matching evelope to print.
But I didn't make this particular one... but I did make another
matching envelope for the next card. See pic below.

Below....
I printed off and cut out the printable card. Inked the edges of every piece.
Then I pop dotted the pcs. to stand out more. I also adhered the printout
onto more heavy cardstock... the pale yellow and layered that onto the green.
I added pop dots and brads to the Peace on Earth wording strip, then added
some bling (stickles) to the star, and added flock to the sheep! For the inside
of the card, I heat embossed the sentiment with gold embossing powder.
Below are pics of the front, inside, and back side of the card and also the envelope.

Now, hop on over to Roberta's blog to see her Fabulous Creation Today!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Oh, we are having a cartridge giveaway...
please read the below message for more info.

~Shell~

A New Look For A New Year- Cartridge Giveaway!

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!!

It's hard to believe, but we've been KC croppin' on here since November, 2009!
In the past couple of years, we've made only minimal changes to our blog design,
so Shell and I thought it was time for a total facelift for KC Croppers.
In honor of our new blog design, we thought it would be fun to have a giveaway.
We both immediately agreed that the best giveaways involve Cricut cartridges,
so we will be giving away the great Winter Lace cartridge.

How will it work?

We want to hit 350 followers.
When we do, we'll give away the cartridge to one lucky follower/commenter.
So, leave us feedback about our new blog design, an email address,
and be sure to follow our blog. If you all ready follow us,
indicate that in your comment.

Want more chances to win?

Comment on any other posts between now and 350 followers,
mention the giveaway, and leave your email address.
One comment per post, and continental US shipping addresses only, please.

Pretty simple, right? That's how we roll here at KC Croppers.
Anything too complicated, and we'd just end up confusing ourselves ;-)
Enjoy your holiday season, and keep checking back for
fun projects and giveaway updates.

Peace and Papercrafting!

Kitty & Shell

Thanksgiving Cards

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, but I feel like it always gets overshadowed by Christmas :-( So, in a gesture of defiance against the Christmas-Industrial Complex, I always make a bunch of Thanksgiving cards and deck out my house in a flock of honeycomb turkeys, pumpkins, and Pilgrims. This year, I played with the fabulous Simply Charmed turkey cut, and I used a great cornucopia I received from the KC Croppers cut swap. The paper is a mix of Me and My Big Ideas and Target dollar spot fall collection.

Viva Thanksgiving!

My Cricut Craft Room's 100 Cartridge Blog Hop

Welcome to
"My Cricut Craft Room's 100 Cartridge Blog Hop"

You should have came from Heather's blog at http://operationcricutdesign.blogspot.com/

if not please start at the beginning over at
Erica's blog at http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/

For this blog hop, I created a baby gift bag and card
using four cartridges... B Is For Boy, New Arrival,
San Serif Font & Once Upon A Princess.

The gift bag was cut from
Once Upon a Princes (p. 65) at 6.75"

The tag on the bag was also cut from
Once Upon A Princess cart (p. 65) at 2"

The 'BABY' wording on the bag was cut from
B Is For Boy cartridge at 1/2"

Glued together using Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive

The card was cut from
New Arrival cartridge (p. 85) at 6"

And I used San Serif font cartridge to cut the Congrats
wording on the card... sorry.. forgot exactly what size I cut it.

Not super thrilled at how the baby's face turned out on the card...
I was in a bit of a hurry when I was working on this and it
really shows. But I love how the mini gift bag turned out.
I added a small button bow to accent it.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my projects for today!

Next... go check out Laura's adorable cards over at http://laurascraftsandmore.blogspot.com/


My Cricut CraftRoom - http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com
Melissa - http://pinkpolkadotscrapping.blogspot.com
Holly - http://hollys-hobbie.blogspot.com/
Samantha - http://samanthascricutcreations.blogspot.com/
Heather F - http://www.papercrafteranonymous.com/
Suzy's Crafts - http://suzyssimplecrafts.blogspot.com/
Tracy - http://www.scrappininthewoods.blogspot.com
Heather S - http://operationcricutdesign.blogspot.com/
Shelly http://kccroppers.blogspot.com --- YOU ARE HERE!!!
Laura - http://laurascraftsandmore.blogspot.com/
Ricki - http://manicexpressionsdesigns.blogspot.com/
Madison - http://funkycards.blogspot.com/
Jen Bowker Ranney - http://myimagitivity.blogspot.com
Alishia - http://alishia-myscrapping.blogspot.com/
Blog candy - http://ericasblogcandy.blogspot.com/

~ Shelly ~

Festive Friday: Halloween Mini Book

TGIF!

Today, for Festive Friday over at My Cricut Craftroom,
I am sharing my mini book that I created using
Halloween cuts from two different cut swap groups
that I participated in during October. I challenged
myself to use as many of the cuts as possible...
some I used on Halloween cards but most of them
I used in this book. It was a lot of fun and I am very
happy with how it turned out. Thanks to everyone who
swapped cuts with me!! I couldn't have done this
book without ya! I apologize that I can not be more
descriptive about which cartridge every cut came from.

The front cover includes two pull out tags.

__________________________________________

On the inside cover is a spider web photo frame...
a photo slides behind it. To get a better look
at each page, you can click on it to enlarge it.

________________________________________


The flag banner in the middle of the page
(on the right) is velcroed and opens up to more
pages... as you can see in the next picture.

____________________________________________


Each of the flaps that open have two tags that pull out.

_____________________________________________

This is a pic (above) with both flaps open.
They close like barn doors and velcro shut again.

___________________________________________


The yellow photo mat (on the right page) opens up
(with velcro underneath) and the Dracula stamped image
on the right is a pull out tag that pulls out upward.

____________________________________________


The black photo mat also opens up... or shall I say
opens downward... as you can see in the next pic.

_________________________________________

Ta-Da... three more photo mats!!
It's very difficult to show you the full effect of this
album in photos... a video would have been much better.

_____________________________________________
The Trick-or-Treat page (on the right) opens up.

_____________________________________________


And another flap on the bottom right side
opens downward. There is also an orange ticket
tag that pulls out from the Too Cute To Spook
Stamped image. I thought the backside of the
tag would be perfect for a little bit of journaling
with my white gel pen... bc the backside is black.

___________________________________________

Near the purple ghost on the bottom flap
is the back of the orange ticket tag.
And the center is a polk-a-dot photo mat.
So there are plenty of spots for photos.

___________________________________________

Above is a close up of the ticket tag... it
slides in and out of a little "hidden" pocket.

_____________________________________________

Both of these pages are flaps that
open to the left and right. And there
is space to add a photo under the
HALLOWEEN cut on the left page.

_____________________________________________


In the above pic, the left flap is
open and the right flap still closed.

______________________________________________

Here is a closer pic!! Ya Gotta
LOVE candy corn!! YUM! YUMM!

___________________________________________

Now both flaps are open to reveal more photo mats.

___________________________________________

Here is a close up of the right page
once it is opened up. The stamped skeleton
image is another tiny tag that slides in
and out of the pocket underneath.

___________________________________________

Above... There are 3 flaps (on both sides) that open
up to more pages. The first two flaps on top are
just decorative with cuts... then when you open
those to the left and right... you will see (the next pic)...

_____________________________________________

After opening the spider and jack-0-lantern
flaps above, this is what you will see... room for
2 more photos and some journaling on the right side
next to the tonic tag. Then you open these two orange
flaps to reveal the last photo mats in this section.

_______________________________________________

Space for 2 more Halloween photos!
I added a little bit of green stickles on the jack-o-lantern's
leaf to give it a little bling. The spider has bling on her bow.

_________________________________________________
Such a cute Jack-o-lantern! I love it!

_______________________________________________

The polk-a-dot mat on the right opens up to...
can you guess... more photo mats!!

_______________________________________________

Under the ghostly gathering square are 3 pull out tags...
more for journaling. And room for 3 photos on this spread.

___________________________________________________
The witch flap opens up (as you can see in the next pic)
to the Pumpkin Patch section of my mini book.

_______________________________________________

You can't really tell in this pic but the orange
photo mat is embossed and it
opens downward for more photo mats.

______________________________________________

Once the top and bottom flaps are open...
you see two more flaps.
These flaps open to the left and right.
Photos can be added to the polk-a-dot flaps.

_______________________________________________

Once all four photo mats are open... you see four
pumpkins and a place for a pumpkin patch
photo in the center. Remember... these are all
cuts I received from others! :)

_____________________________________________

The last two pages are more flaps that open up.
I added two buttons on each section and wrapped
embroidery thread around them to keep them in place.
To open the flaps, you unravel the black thread on one side.

_______________________________________________

Here is a close up of how I closed these
flaps instead of using velcro again.

_____________________________________________

When you open the first two flaps (on the left)
here is what you'll see... and the
RIP cut is a pocket for another tag.

____________________________________________

On the inside back cover... DEAD END!
But room for two more photos on the
inside of the left & right flaps!

______________________________________________

Uh-oh.... my book will no longer close!
LOVE IT!!

__________________________________________

Here is the completed book... as you can tell,
it no longer closes correctly.
It will just have to sit on my shelf like this!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE creating mini albums!

Be sure to check out the Festive Friday projects
from the other Design Team Members over at
My Cricut Craftroom.... oh, and be sure to stop
in this weekend.... we are having another
100 cartridge blog hop going on!!

Happy Friday!!!

~ Shelly ~