The Cuttlebug has arrived!

She is here .... and she is so cute and green! Anyway, I am totally in luuurve with my new cuttlebug.

Here's a picture of the first card I made using my cuttlebug to emboss:

Self Control

So... apparently I have no self control. Remember those awesome crafty tools I was LUSTING over in my last post?? (ok ok, I know my last post was a WHILE ago.. but I digress) Well... since then, I bought myself a CUTTLEBUG!! woo hoo!! It is awesome. Not too big either, perfect size for my manhattan apartment. Now I'm just obsessed with collecting all of the Nestabilities - seriously they are the most useful die-cuts. I will do a post on them soon!

Oh but that's not all... StampinMOM bought the Cricut. Oh yes she did! It was a huge investment - but so far, SO COOL!! I will take pictures at Thanksgiving, but she made little favor boxes for everyone at the table. So far, I have only used it for my escort cards as part of my "wedding crafts" I will be sure to post pics once they're done!

Now that the Save-The-Dates are out the door... I will be posting pics soon!

LUST

So over the course of the summer I bought one of these:

(source)

and inherited one of these:

(source)
(I will never be able to explain how my dad ended up with one of these in his closet... I'm not sure he even knows!!)


That should be enough crafting goodies to last me a good long time!!

Then why oh why am I lusting after this:


(source)

and this:



(source)

I have a bad feeling that one of those two might be joining my collection pretty soon!!!

And all that jazz...

so the boy and I recently attended an Out-of-Town wedding in the midwest. The couple currently lives in California which posed a problem when deciding what to gift the couple! We wouldn't bring a present with us since we didn't want them to have to lug it all the way across the country, and we sure didn't want to lug it from NY either!! Enter Bed Bath & Beyond... The customer service there is amazing! We were able to buy a gift and have it shipped to the couple in Cali. They even give you this cute card to bring with you so that you don't attend the wedding emptyhanding... naturally though, it wasn't cute enough for me!!


Card before


After (envelope)


Outside

Inside


Naturally they got one of my hand-made wedding cards too ;-) A wedding is nothing if not an opportunity for card-giving!!!

Isn't it amazing what 10 minutes and some paper can do to a boring gift receipt!! I like the after version much better!! What do you think?

Save The Dates!

Well... its time for my first wedding related post!! After a full summer of work, the SAVE THE DATES are almost done!! I can't show them to you yet since they haven't been mailed... but I can tease you a little!

It started over July 4th weekend with:
4 Aunts
2 Cousins/Bridesmaids
1 Mother
1 Grandmother
and many paper cutters





We continued in the beginning of August, this time we only had a skeleton crew of
1 Aunt
1 Cousin/Bridesmaid
1 Mother
1 Fiance

A GOCCO


a XYRON


And the use of many, many surfaces....


Stay tuned for the final product!!

Home Sweet Housewarming

Seems like a lot of my friends are moving this summer so it was time to create some housewarming cards.

This first card, in shades of green was for a friend who just moved into an apartment very near to mine! (yay!!)



This second card was originally created for a friend who is moving alllllllll the way across the country to L.A.

Sometimes, a card is too much!

Well... in my opinion - not very often! A handmade card is such a cute gesture especially since cards of any kind are slowly disapearing and being replaced by e-mail. But, ther are those times when a card is too much, and an adorable tag is just right! These tags were all made at Stampin Mom's crafting weekend this winter... and they are adorable! Wouldn't they be perfect on a bottle of wine as a hostess gift?

More about Stampin Mom!

Speaking of Stampin Mom... I wanted to share some more of her work!! Over the winter, my Mom hosted a full out stamping Weekend at her house with her sisters! These are all the cards we made!!

Stampin Mom

Its high time I included some work from my Stampin Mom!! She is the one who got me addicted to cards & invitations and well... lets just say that her work blows mine out of the water a lot of the time! So last weekend I graduated from Grad School and here is the B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L Graduation card that Stampin Mom designed for me!!

Get Well Wishes

Here's a cute card I made for the DF's Grandfather who hurt his back recently...

Spring is in the Air!

Well... I haven't posted in a couple of weeks... but I believe I have a good excuse.... I'm ENGAGED!! woo hoo!! The boy popped the question on 3/29/08 (six years to the day of the night we met) and I said yes... get ready for the deluge of wedding crafting coming your way!

I guess spring was in the air because I had 4 other friends all get engaged last month. I had seen this super cute set of retired stamps by StampinUp called Lifecycles last year and I knew it would make a great engagement card. Once everyone started getting engaged I decided to buy it from ebay and make some engagement cards for my friends!

Happy Birthday, Liz!!

Here is a bookmark I made for my friend Liz's birthday! Not a huge project, but I thought it was a cute little present to include in a birthday card. I even bought laminating paper to make it a little more substantial :-)

Happy Valentines Day, World!

Well.. today I am showing you the Valentines day Card that I sent to my friends and family this year. Since December was crazy for me with finishing school and all... I never quite got to sending out my holiday cards... enter valentines day! It seemed like a reasonable solution... what do you guys think?

All stamps in this card from StampinUp.

Crafting Rachel @ Home

Since I finished grad school in december, I figured it was time to attempt to make my apartment look less like a dorm room and more of 'home'. My previous decorations include mine and the BF's diplomas, one painting inherited from my grandparents, and a clock commemorating the White Sox win of the World Series in 2005 (thanks BF!).

Enter crafting.

Who said paper is just for cards! Being the crafty person that I am, I came up with 3 projects

Project #1 - The bathroom vanity

Ok, so contact paper isn't really craft paper, but I think it still counts! I wish I'd taken a before picture so you could see how hideous this bathroom was when we moved in. BRIGHT purple paint, walls, ceiling, EVERYWHERE. So the first step was the paint it white. (thanks mom & dad!). Step 2 was to cover the peeling, old, disgusting P-lam vanity with black contact paper.
So here's the result (Much improved, I do believe):

Its been a long time, baby!

Well... I haven't been very diligent about my posting here...(its been about a year *cough*) Anyhow, now that I'm done with Grad school, I am back into some major crafting and I can't wait to share it all!

I'll start today with an old Save the Date card I helped make for my friend Kristy's wedding. Just to prove how old this save the date is, Kristy now has a beautiful almost 6 month old baby!

The scan of this card doesn't do it justice, but I guess that's what happens when you think something is so cute you leave it on your fridge for 2+ years!