Hi and welcome to my blog. I hope you enjoy your visit.


When I first set up this blog I called it Life Keeps Surprising Me but, since it has now become more about papercrafting, I changed the name to be more reflective of what is going on here.

I am so appreciative of those who have elected to follow my blog and I love to read comments that have been left here for me.

Thanks so much for dropping by.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

It finally arrived!!

     I have been waiting (not so patiently) for the Once Upon A Princess Cricut cartridge to arrive. I pre-ordered it back in November. Well it arrived today! I think I'll cut out some crowns to take with me when we go to GA Thursday. We'll be watching Abi and Molly while our d-i-l chaperons a field trip with Emily. I've cut some Easter baskets from the Easter solutions cartridge and I'll take along some stuff to decorate the baskets. Now I can bring the crowns and they can decorate them also. Molly loves to do "arps and craps" as she calls it. I am looking forward to playing around with this cartridge later today and tomorrow.

Here is a card I made using the Straight From The Nest cartridge.
Here are a couple of layouts I did this past weekend. The second one features my paternal grandparents in photos taken almost 100 years ago. I scanned and printed the crocheted doily onto cardstock and then cut around each flower.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Straight From the Nest


This is my first project using my new Cricut cartridge, Straight From the Nest. This cartridge has so many great cuts on it. One of the things I really like are the "corner" cuts. 

For this card, I cut the "Happy Birdie Day" corner at 3 inches but adhered it straight rather than in a corner. I had to bling it up a bit using my crystal Stickles.  I cut the birds at 2 inches. I cut the base and the layers out of a light tan cardstock .  

I colored the legs,wings,beaks, hats, and pompoms using various stamp pads and sponge daubers. I embossed the little blue bird bodies using my Sizzix Texture Boutique and the Cuttlebug Textile embossing folder. Oh, for the birds' eyes, I used a black marker on the base. When I adhered the body to the base, the birds now had black eyes. I used a white gel pen to high-light the eyes and I used my glittery Gel Writers to add some accents to the hats, beaks, and pompoms. I did some shading with pastel chalks.

I purposely placed the birds a little off center and slightly tilted. For those of you who know me well, you know this is quite a step for me. I tend to try to keep everything centered and "just so." I am really trying to be more free and casual with my projects. I know, baby steps, baby steps.

I am looking forward to the weekend crop with my buddies from the sfyscybercroppers Yahoo group. I have a little message for any of my friends from that group who may check in here ------- Chatters Rule, Emailers Drool. You know who you are!

....................... Wow!...........................

I checked my blog and saw that I had 2 comments!! I am so excited. The first comment is from Enfys and she likes my card. Wow! She is so talented and makes such beautiful cards, she was a guest designer on Everyday Cricut. I am so thrilled that she liked my card!!! 

Thank you Enfys and Kristal for your comments.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

............................ March, so far ...................................

It's only the 10th and I'm already behind on my goals for March. Hopefully, I'll catch up by this weekend.

I received a new cartridge for my Cricut yesterday. Its called Straight From The Nest and is full of really cute images. I'm looking forward to playing with it.

This past October our daughter-in-law ran the Marine Corps Marathon. When I saw the photos from that day I knew I wanted to do a scrapbook page. I finally got it done this past weekend and a picture of the page follows. I am also posting a photo of a card I made congratulating our son, Phil on his promotion. 


We are pretty proud of both Phil and Shannon.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Giveaway

I came across a post on another blog (thanks Vicki) about a chance to win a Colorbox Cats Eye Fluid Chalk set. I love these chalks and would love to win them . The next best thing would be for someone I know to win.
Click on the link below for a chance to win. You can enter once a day and the contest closes March 19th.
http://www.favecrafts.com/sweeps/Colorbox-Fluid-Chalk-Set-GiveawayCatsEye Fluid Chalk Sets Feb2010 Product Review and Giveaway: 
Cat’s Eye Fluid Chalk Queue Set