blogger award for me?

Well lucky me, two wonderful people blessed me with the stylish blogger award! Thank you to Marebear and Crystal. Two very lovely and talented ladies!

I now know I am loved by some blogger friends :) Thank you ladies so much for choosing me as a stylish blogger!!
The fun in receiving the award is I get to share, share and share! Here are the requirements...

1. Thank the person/persons that shared this award with me and link it back to their blog/blogs.

2. Share eight things about myself.

3. Pass this award on to eight other bloggers that I have recently discovered.

4. Leave a comment so that they can pass along the recognition!


Well, here I go...
Thank you Crystal and Mary! Oh, I already did that, I think I even left comments on their blogs with my gratitude...
Eight things about me, hummmm...
Okay, 1. I chose my blogger name, Chignon, because it is a fancy way of saying hair bun. It's pronounced Shin-Yon
2. I am a Media Specialist (teacher-librarian) by day (hence the hair bun idea) and a super crafter at night. Okay, I like to think I'm super...at least my family thinks I'm super, and I think my SIL thinks I super, I think.
3. I love to read, but you may have guessed that from my profession. Many nights it's a tug-of-war on what to do, read or craft.
4. I am only 29 years old, and will always be 29 years old, even though my oldest child is 20, middle is 18, and youngest is 16.
5. I am not a grandma - remember I am only 29! I do have three terrific children and a hubby who tolerates my hobby.
6. I grew my hair out long so I can wear the traditional librarian bun, I even have some old cardigan sweaters I can throw around my shoulders...but you likely won't see me in that! Unless I'm really cold in my craft room.
7. Laughter is great for the soul, that's why I married a funny man. I also like words used in funny ways, you know puns, play on words, etc. Well I am a librarian after all!
8. I used to call my crafting space the dungeon, because it is located in the basement as part of the utility room. But over the holidays I switched places and sent DH to the dungeon with his desk and I have a bigger spot to play. And I have room for a friend to join me - want to come over and chirp with the Cricut?

Now choosing eight bloggers to share the award...drum roll....
JustYolie, she has such beautiful layouts at her blog
Heather at the spotted leopard does great layering on her layouts
Shawn is a wonderful lady with creative ideas
Flaunt It Fridays has a weekly challenge
Rhonda at Scrappity Dappity Do has terrific projects
Joy at Joy's Life is super creative and funny too
Greenbean has wonderful unique and creative ideas
And for number 8, Yoli. she has been sharing some wonderful organizing ideas

Cricle Blog challeng #21

This week's challenge was to use two cuts and to have an animal, or something for an animal.

I'm the animal that needed a case for sunglasses, oh okay, I did use an owl on the design. I found a pattern on the internet to sew a case for glasses then went digging through my fabric stash. I found some old jeans and left over flannel fabric with an owl print. Perfect!

I cut the two needed pieces from the fabrics then decided to make a stencil with vinyl and my Cricut. I first cut an owl from Give a Hoot at 3" (page 28) then a pair of sunglasses from Groovy Times (pg 55 shift) at 1 3/4 inches. for the owl, I made a stencil by removing the actual cut out so the remaining outside stuff is the stencil. I stuck the vinyl onto the jeans piece of fabric and used a brayer to really get the edges down. Then I used the sunglasses cut and put them where I thought the owl eyes would be, and again made sure it was adhered well using a brayer. The fabric was dark so I put a layer of yellow fabric paint on first, after that was dry I mixed some colors to get a green that was close to the lining (flannel) fabric. I let it all dry over night then stitched the sunglasses case together. After finishing the sewing I realized it would be better to have an image on the "front" of the case. So, out came the vinyl and this time I cut the sunglasses (again from GT pg 55, shift) at 2" real dial size.

I used some golden yellow fabric paint and filled in the image. Let it dry. I used some Viva decor pens to jazz up the shades, Glass Effect Gel for the glint lines and star, mimicking the picture in the book, and outlined the shades with Lilac Pearl Pen.

Valentines

I've been crafting, really I have! I just don't always post that quickly...so I made a few Valentines this weekend but of course I couldn't post in case my loved ones saw them before receiving the cards!

This first card was made using the guidelines for the Cricut Circle blog weekly challenge-use a heart, embossing and two cricut cuts. The shaped card is actually white card stock. Most of my photos are taken at night, I know it should be in the real sunshine of the day, but really?! I work during the sunlight hours so crafting occurs at night and thus picture taking is at night. Back to the card...I used the cheap card stock found in the office supplies and cut the heart shape with the cricut Wild Cards cart. Then I embossed the top of the card using the floral folder that came with my cuttlebug, and nope, there never was a name listed (or I didn't see it in my excitement of opening the gift at Christmas!) Next I used some colored twine to stitch around the heart (the holes were there from the cut!). Then on the wild card cart I found the hugs and kisses sentiment, cut that out of the white scraps. Adhered the hugs and kissed to a heart cut out from Wild Cards using shiny red paper from my scrap stash, popped up the heart with some 3m dimensionals and you see the results! The white "stitching" on the red heart is drawn with the white signo pen

Okay this card the color is really off! The embossed background is actually a light blush, pinkish color, and shiny. The paper is from my scrap stash (most of my paper was given to me from a card making friend who inherited it from a thankful parent of a student). I embossed the blush paper with the Persia Die/Embossing combo (the folder part of couse!) The layered cut is from one of my newest carts, Groovy Times. I just love that cart and have more fun looking at the book than creating (well that will change as I use it!) All the papers are from my scrap stash (I have a lot of scrap paper!) The ribbon was from some packaging, and the white stitching was part of the ribbon. In all a fun card with out any investiment! (other than time and cricut machine materials!)

Okay so now for this third card. The black background paper is Coredinations black magic.

I used the argyle cuttlebug folder and lightly sanded the black layer. I actually did this background piece to show my DS's girlfriend how the cuttlebug works. Being the paper horder I am, I saved the sample and used it to make this card. The cuts are several from Groovy Times and the paper is all from my (yep, you guessed it!) scrap stash! The silver letters that say Stay Cool are "shined" up with a bit by drawing small curved lines with the a light blue colored Viva Decor Pearl pen. The sunglasses have a bit of glossy shine from a clear Viva Decor pen.

And here is a photo attempt to show the dimension the viva decor paints have and maybe a bit lighter look to the card!

My son loved the card because it wasn't girly at all, and he had a pair of silver rimmed glasses just like those!

Circle Blog January Monthly Challenge

The challenge at the circle blog was to scraplift a project that was a past blog project, use two cricut cuts and two sponsor products. I saw a video on the circle blog showing how to make a shaker card by Shantaie Fowler for Halloween. Well, I needed to make a birthday card and loved the idea of a shaker card...so here is my interpretation!

I used American Crafts everyday bonjour paper (the flower base) and the solid colors are from Bazzill Basics Paper, Tropical Breeze (blue) and Guava Sensation (pink). The ribbon behind the Happy Birthday sentiment is American Crafts.
The card base is 5 1/2 square and the scalloped squares were altered on my gypsy using the frame cut from Accent Essentials. I cut two, one at 5 inches and a smaller one at 4 1/2, both had the inside square cut hidden with the hide contour button. The butterfly cut is from Hello Kitty Greetings cut at 3.73 by 3.4 inches. One butterfly was welded to the square, this was the cut used to glue onto the clear plastic (I recycled cartridge packaging but I believe Bazzill sells some wonderful clear acetate). The Happy Birthday sentiment was cut from Hello Kitty Greetings, height was 1 inch.

The shaker pieces were a miss-match of items I had. Some of the sequin was from Valentine's day card kits found at Target dollar spot last year, and some of the seed beads came from my DD stash of beading supplies.
I used dimensionals on the birthday sentiment to add drama, I felt with the floral paper as the shadow just didn't make it stand out enough. I don't have to worry about mailing the card, I plan to hand deliver it to my aunt in March when we meet for a ladies trip to SC. Over all, I am very pleased with how it came out, and will have to give myself a pep talk to actually give it to my aunt instead of keeping it for myself!

Weekly Circle blog challenge #18

The challenge is to only use one cart that originally came with your cricut machine and at least three different cuts.

I chose to use Accent essentials. I used my gypsy to weld the boarder pieces. I also used the shadow feature of the frame to make the large solid square layers and adjusted the sizes with the gypsy to make the fit. The smaller solid squares are the inside cuts from the frames. I used the leaf cut shadow to make it a solid leaf and then the posy flowers are in red. One of the posies I used a water mark ink to show the different circles. I use shadow of the flower to make the blue dimensional flowers.


Papers: Sprinkles Leisure Suit from Luxe designs
Green #2 from Die Cuts With a View
Pastel Blue from The Paper Company
All cuts from Accent Essentials, designed on the gypsy cut on the cricut
Elegance Black Glitter pillow stickers (black swirls) from K&Company
brads made with the I-top tool from Imaginesce
fabulous - rhinestones words from me&my big ideas.

The blue flowers were made using the shadow cut of the posy flower then with scissors I cut a spiral into the center, make the inside smaller, glued the inside edge of the spiral to the outside of the now cupped up flower until used up the length of paper.

The center brads are made with the i-top. I used a water mark ink pad and a background stamp to add variety before punching out the paper to make the brads.

Flaunt It Fridays - Bear in Can

A fun blog that does a weekly challenge, Flaunt It Fridays, is featuring the bear peeking

out of a garbage can from the Give a Hoot cartridge. I made this card with my sister in mind. She lives on the East Coast, I live in the Mid West. We plan to see each other for a ladies get-a-way in early March so I thought this would be fun to send her.
So how did I make this?...well all the papers are scraps from my stash. In fact, the dark brown is some textured paper I have had for years (over 15 years!) that at one point was used as a folder for my teaching files. All the bear and can cuts were done at 3 inches. The background layer was run through the cuttlebug using the leafy branch folder. The orange ribbon I picked up at Joannes after Halloween on sale but I don't recall the brand. I hand wrote the words using a Bic Mark*It fine point marker in the color Harvest Orange. (love the set, so many colors it was easy to find just the right match!) I added the eyes and noise with the dark brown marker from the same Bic Mark*It set and the mouth is part of the die cut. I inked the edge of the green background paper lightly with ColorBox fluid chalk in tangerine.

Inside the card I decorated with the same light green scrap paper using the Fiskars Elegance border punch, and lightly inked the fancy edge using the tangerine ColorBox chalk. The words "can't wait to see you" are written with the same Harvest Orange Bic Mark*It marker on a punch out of the scrap paper. I used the Fiskars cameo appearance squeeze punch and again, inked the edges with the tangerine chalk.

Now to find an envelope and write a brief note to my sis. I might even make it in time for today mail pick-up!

Thank you Joy's Life!

 Here is the beginning of jazzing up the bumpy vase.  

It was super easy to color the raised dots with the Bic Mark-it markers

I was a super lucky super friend over at the Joy's Life website.  I love Joy's site because of her super sense of humor and crafty, creative superpowers!  Just before Christmas she had a fun, crafty, creative filled 12 days of Christmas event and give a ways were involved.   I was blessed to receive Bic Mark-it markers - terrific permanent markers in fine tip and super fine.

Yes, I actually won two different sets of the colorful tools from Joy's Life!  I really wanted to try coloring on glass and the Bic Mark-its were just the thing!  I have a set of wine glasses just waiting to be decorated, but until I decide on the design...I tried the markers on this vase I picked up at Ikea.  I couldn't leave the vase empty so I fired up my Cricut and made some paper flowers using bamboo skewers as the stems.  I didn't have any of the decorative stones/glass to fill the bottom so decided to vary the height of the flowers by tying ribbons on the "stems" to act as stoppers at the top of the vase.
I made this a couple weeks ago, meant to gift it to a friend last weekend and forgot to take it with me to our meet-up.  so now it sits in my kitchen reminding met o get to the craft room and create!  In case you are wondering about the color choice of orange and green, well it was created with Fiskateers and Cricuteers in mind!  Now I wish I could remember what cartridges have the flowers, I used my gypsy, didn't save the mat layout, but my best guess is Accent Essentials.  The solid paper colors are coordinations and the pattern, who knows, they were in my scrap stash.  Ribbon is a wild guess, some it think are from the Target dollar spot.