by: Creative Team Member Monique

Available for purchase at My Scrapbooking Supplies, Scrapbook.com, eBay

Cricut cartridge *Beyond Birthdays* is great for making cards, invitations, and layouts. It has lots of words like You Did it, Congrats, Happy Anniversary, Laugh Often, I Love You, Hello Friend, Happy Holidays, Create Joy, It's A Boy, It's A Girl, You're Invited, Thank You and many, many more. This cartridge is a must have. It is an essential cartridge. You definitely will get a lot of use out of this cartridge.

For the following layout, I used the word *Thank You* as my title that went perfectly with a poem I wrote:

God, thank you for the winter.

Thank you for the birds.

Thank you for the snow.

I love all this beauty so.

Get your own Beyond Birthdays Cart now.

Products used for this project:

KaiserCraft Christmas Spirit "Jolly"

American Crafts Christmas "Ivy" Ribbon

Mod Podge

Stickles

Martha Stewart Craft Knife

Storybook Cricut Cartridge

Jumbo Clothespin

My thoughts:

I honestly can't believe how easy this was to put together. I just used a white spray paint on the jumbo clothespin. After it dried I brought the pieces in and applied mod podge to the clothespin and adhered the Kaisercraft paper and allowed it to dry. Once it was dried I took my Martha Stewart Craft Knife and cut around the clothespin. I then took some of my American Craft ribbon and tied it on to the clothespin.

After that I got out my Storybook cartridge, used coordinating Kaiser Craft DP and cut out my letters. I then made the size 1/4 bigger and  cut again in the burgundy color. Took some pop dots and applied them to the letters, adhered them to the clothespin and finished them off with some stickles.

You can even take this project one step further and make pretty mats for your photos to match your clothespin. And this project can be used for so many different occations, don't just limit yourself to Christmas. It can be for birthdays, special friends, Easter, Valentines, you name it...you can use this project for it.

My Review: Storybook Cricut Cartridge - I can't say enough good things about this cartridge. It's perfect. I give it a rating of 5. I might be prejudiced because I love the "whimsy" of the letters. You can do your letters in 3 different settings plus there is are a ton of extras. I actually use this cartridge quite a bit and I think the letters in "family" came out great.

Do any of you have this cartridge? What do you think of it? Do you love the "whimsy" of the letters as much as I do? We would love to see your designs !

(Project and Review By April Lower)

For this layout I used a 5x7 photo of my daughter, double matted the photo in coordinating blue and cranberry cardstock.  Created a red ribbon border  using three large white brads and a 3-D K and Company chipboard Christmas accent.  The photo is off-centered to the lower right corner of the designer paper and accented with coordinating red, blue and white felt snowflakes, which add texture to my layout.

Product Name: K and Company Chipboard Christmas Accent, Felt Snowflakes, Christmas Ribbon

Available at :  K and Company Chipboard Christmas Accent, Twopeasinabucket.com, Scrapbook.com.

Now its your turn  share your thoughts , photos, and  designs , I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend see you soon!

Supplies: Double Sided Patterned Paper or Cardstock measuring at least 6" x 12", 3 brads, paper piercer, strong adhesive and a trimmer.

1. Cut your 7"x 12" cardstock into  (8) 1"x6" strips, next cut (4) 1'' x5'' strips, then cut (1) strip 1''x4'' all together you should have 13 strips.

2. Add adhesive to the end of each strip A sided facing up (this is the side of the paper you want to be your design) then  wrap the (8) 1' x6" and (4) 1''x 5" strips as shown in the picture below.

3.Wrap the (1) 1"x4" strips as shown in the picture below.

4. Next, using your paper piercer punch a hole in  the wrapped strips then using a brad attach the petal together it should like this.

5. Now we are ready to assemble the pieces, place a glue dot in the center of each layer then stack each layer make sure you alternate the layer as you go.

Now you have a finished bow, that will add a a personalized touch to you gift giving this year.

Today's Product : Cosmo Cricket  Jolly by Golly

Scrappers this is another non traditional Christmas collection but there is a few traditional pages in it too which make this a very versatile and simply adorable I love it! I was immediately drawn to all the  snowmen, snow capped trees and the fun colored papers. To sum it up this collection is a fun Christmas Winter land,  and I would definitely recommend it! Check out what I have made so far.

My Designs

This a layout of my daughter Jordyn all bundle up, again this is an awesome example of this  collection being used for winter photos.

Christmas using Cosmo Border sheet and Bella Blvd
with American craft ribbon. To add to this card I used my white gel pen to add some dot to look like snow.

Available at : Scrapbook.com and Amazon.com

Thanks for joining us today and I would love to hear your thoughts and see your designs !

The products I used for this project were as follows:

Martha Stewart snowflake punch

Cricut Tags, Bags, Boxes, and more cartridge

Christmas Red Stickles

DCWV "The Christmas Stack (with glitter)

American Crafts Premium Ribbon

Featured Product :Cricut Tags, Bags, Boxes, and more cartridge

My Thoughts

This is actually the first time I used this cartridge to make a box or bag. I have used it just for tag making in the past. Since I did not have the longer sticky mat I was not able to make my bag as large as I wanted but this bag is 5 1/2 inches. I used the shopping bag template. What I liked about this was that I didn't need a template first and I did NO cutting...the cricut did it for me. I was able to get 2 templates out of one 12x12 piece of paper which was nice also.

This was a simpler bag to tape together but I'm not sure how long it would have taken me if it was one of the harder ones. Since there is no instructions as to which way to fold, and it's not scored you have to kind of play around with it to see how it's to be put together. And you must be careful that you are keeping your folds straight since it's not scored. It does however give you a slightly actually (very small) cut where it wants you to fold at so that is helpful.

All together I would give this cartridge a 3 1/2 rating I like it but it's not one of my favorites. I do like the convenience of not needed to print out and cut out a template, trace it on your paper and then cut again,this is a time saver.What about you? Have you used this cartridge? What have you used it for and how did it turn out for you?

Product Name: Cricut Tags, Bags, Boxes, and more cartridge

Available at :  Amazon.com, and eBay

(Project and Reviewed By April Lower)
Get your Cricut Tags, Bags, Boxes, and more cartridge from EBay:

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Martha Stewart All Occasions Cake Art Cricut Cartridge

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Martha Stewart Crafts Elegant Cake Art Cricut Cartridge

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Martha Stewart Craft Seasonal Cake Art Cricut Cartridge

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Merry Christmas

Merry Memories

Merry Christmas

Featured Product: Basic Grey‘s Eskimo Kisses

My Thoughts

Today for my designs I used these beautiful double sided papers from the Basic Grey‘s Eskimo Kisses collection. I am usually a tradition red and green type of person but after seen this collection with the pinks and purples I have changed my ways. As you can see with using this collection I made a few different styles elegant and a traditional card to satisfy my old ways. I really enjoyed the versatility of the double sided paper which I am a huge fan of. I think with double sided paper it's like get two coordinating sheets in one, which takes all the guesswork out and keep you creative. Another good thing about this collection is you can use it for Christmas or winter cards and layouts.

Product Used : Basic Grey‘s Eskimo Kisses Glazed Apples and Village Eskimo, Paper Glaze, Bella Blvd Details.

Available at: Scrapbook.com, Twopeasinabucket.com

Quick tip: This year save time scrapbooking your Holiday events by scrapbooking each event into a 1 or 2 scrapbook page layout. A really simple way to achieve this would be to consider changing the sizes of your photos. Use more 2x2, 3x3, 2x4, 3x4 combination then the normal 4x6 .

Company: Mister Art

Company URL: MisterArt.com

Since perfectly straight edges are not possible using scissors, using some kind of paper cutter is imperative, and he Marshall Personal Paper Cutter is great for that.

Pros: Most paper cutters have to have special (and expensive) replacement blades. The Marshall's Personal Paper Cutter pack of 5 replacement blades are just plain garden-variety single-edge razor blades that can be purchased at the local ‘Dollar Store’. Blades last a long time and when they do need to be replaced, it is a task that is very simple and quick to perform.

I really love how safe the Marshall Personal Paper Cutter is, as well. The kids can use it with only a little supervision.

Cons: There are no cons for the Marshall's Personal Paper Cutter paper cutter. It is an excellent tool. I did, however, find ordering just a bit difficult on the Mister Art website and shipping rates are kind of high.

Guarantee: There is a guarantee that products ordered will be of the finest quality and free of defects. Items that are damaged will be replaced or the price refunded. All returns must be approved before the return shipment is made and there is an automatic 15% restocking fee except for damaged merchandise. Items that are shipped directly from the factory have and automatic 20% restocking fee. The entire return/guarantee policy can be read at the site.

Value for money: The Marshall's Personal Paper Cutter paper cutter is an excellent value. I’ve never seen a comparable product. It is lightweight and can be stored in a desk drawer or hung on the wall.

Where to buy: www.MisterArt.com

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