50 States Blog Hop WINNER

Hello all,

I am so sorry that I haven't chosen a winner until now...I really don't have a great excuse except that I am on the 15th day in a row of a 22 day stretch working.  I know I have said that I have a pretty boring "real" job, but boring is sometimes worse than being slammed.  At least it is for me.  When I get home at night all I want to do is eat dinner, veg in front of the tv for a while and go NIGHT NIGHT.  Can you tell I have a 1 year old in the house...Night, night!!!  LOL  So first I wanna thank Kristal over at Kandrewdesigns for such an honor to be able to participate in her YEARLY blog hop.  She only hosts a blog hop once a year and she goes all out.  (I only found out yesterday that her WONDERFUL husband is her blog sponsor)  How cool is that?  So therefore, did you know that each one of us who participated in her hop showing off our STATE is getting a My Pink Stamper set?  How wonderful is that, Thank you Mr. KANDREW!  OH YEAH.  (I would have done it anyway).  Kristal has been such a good "friend".  She has such awesome files and she really knows her stuff.  I love her files.  REALLY I DO!!!  She was one of my first followers and has been very supportive of my blog.  SECOND I want to thank all of my NEW followers.  You were all so very kind!!!  I was so touched by all of your comments.  SERIOUSLY.  I have my blog set up to monitor all comments, they then come to my email which is linked to my Droid and guess what, my phone was blowing up constantly.  Meaning I had to read EACH and EVERYONE's comments (which I enjoyed tremendously) and I had to publish each and every one I read (which I was more than grateful for).  You are all so GREAT, your comments were wonderful and I hope that you all keep following me and commenting, (ever once in a while) on my blog.  THANK YOU!!!  Ok, if you have read this far down you are more than deserving for some more blog candy.  Before I started this hop I had 92 followers and at the end I had 207.  WOW!!!  So, I am going to do some more blog candy.  Leave a comment here saying anything you would like and become a follower (if you aren't already) you will be elligible for one entry.  Post my blog candy on your blog and leave a comment that you did that and you will get another entry.  To get one more opportunity for the blog candy, grab my blinkie and post it to your sidebar and leave a comment that you did so.  The giveaway for this will be a brand new I-ROCK.    I love mine and thought you all might love one also.  Ok, ok, you have all been very patient and now onto the winner of the Houndstooth cuddlebug folder and the Mt. Rushmore refrigerator magnet IS:

#53 Scrappy Jackie: SAID
These projects are soooo classy and beautiful.... Great job! Thanks for telling us about North Dakota... I am from West Michigan and this winter it has been interresting... We are always a little warmer than you guys... along the lake. but the snow and how deep it is and the ice hanging from the buildings... it is so strange and different. I keep reminding my boys when they say it is cold that it is colder in NorthDakota and Canada... I have not seen it quite like this ever. Hang in there... I have been promised by my husband that this winter will end soon... we'll have to see. Thanks for the hop! pjritsema at gmail dot com


Scrappy Jackie - please email me your snail mail addy and I will get this out to you ASAP.  And yes, South Dakota was at 47 degrees today, so hopefully we are out of the below zeros.

As always, have a great day and god bless.

50 States Blog Hop

***If you are looking for the Festive Friday's Blog Hop, please scroll down to next post***

A Big Cricut Hello & Chirp to each of you! Welcome to the Cricky Across the 50 Blog Hop hosted by K Andrew of Getting Cricky!  If you are here from RHODE ISLAND
Karel Jennings of One by One the Flamingos are Stealing my Sanity http://karelj.blogspot.com/ then you are in the right spot. If you just arrived here and would like to start from the beginning please go to KAndrew's Getting Cricky!  For this blog hop K Andrew is celebrating her big move across the country with a big road trip, and of course this hop across the 50 states! She has asked us all to post a little bit about the state we are representing, and then to post our Favorite Craft Project. I am representing the state of South Dakota

I have lived in South Dakota for 15 years after moving from Minnesota.  The state's population is 819,761 people.  I live in Sioux Falls and our population is approximately 160,000.  Our capital is located in Pierre and is approximately 3 hours from us.  We live on the east side of the State, but travel to Rapid City area a couple of times a year.  Rapid City area is best known for Mt. Rushmore, the Bad Lands and Crazy Horse,  all very popular tourist attractions.  Our state bird is the ring necked pheasant and a popular hunting fowl.  South Dakota's population doubles in early fall and mid winter for hunting.  We've survived the wrath of Dick Cheney's hunting abilities.  LOL  Ted Nugent has also graced our presence for this adventure. 

Another popular attraction is located in Sturgis.  If you like motorcycles, especially Harley Davidsons you must come to visit us in August.  We have the biggest motorcycle ralley in the United States.  Again, celebrities like Jay Leno, Kidd Rock, Guns and Roses and Ozzy Osbourne come to visit us during our ralley. 

Our weather changes very dramatically.  One day it can be 5 degrees below zero in the winter and the next day it might be 35 above.  This winter has been one of the coldest I can remember.  We can get up to 8 inches of snow in one day and start to melt the next, but not this year.  It has been extremely cold this year.  We haven't received the most snow fall, but the cold is almost too much to bear at times.  Our summers are fairly normal.  The average temperature is 80 degrees, great for fishing, canoeing and swimming.  Our family loves to camp and South Dakota has many state and private campgrounds.  It is a very popular thing for families to do and you really must plan your camping weekends in advance.  The campgrounds fill up very fast with South Dakotans and neighboring state visitors.

I hope you have enjoyed your virtual visit into South Dakota and if you ever do plan on visiting for real, give me a shout and I will do my best to accomodate you with attractions to visit.

Kristal has asked us to show you our most favorite project in the last year.  Here is mine:



Harli and Mike

 This is my past project that I am most proud of.  I don't only paper craft.  I love etching and usingvinyl.  My daughter got married last June and asked me to do all the decorations.  I pretty much made everything for the wedding.  I glass etched all of her stemware and all the table mirrors.  I also made all the party favors and balloons.  My mom made all the flowers.  I love the way all the things turned out and I hope you have enjoyed your stay here.

BLOG CANDY:  I will be giving the Houndstooth cuddlebug folder and a Mt. Rushmore magnet away.  Then you can tell all your friends you got the magnet by visiting South Dakota via a blog post.  Please become a follower (and I will follow you back) and leave a comment.  ALSO Please make sure to leave comments on all of the blogs for a chance to win several different Grand Prizes on Getting Cricky's blog, from these great companies (I will send you a list)!

Next stop on the hop is TENNESSEE Shannon Lefew of My Scrappy Creations http://shannonleffew.blogspot.com/ (Next Stop)

Here is the complete list of the blog hop in case you get lost, but you can always go back to Getting Cricky also and start from there.  Have a wonderful day and enjoy the hop.

ALABAMA
Tanya of Scrappy Scavenger http://www.scrappyscavenger.blogspot.com/

ARIZONA
Renee Kowalchik of KoolChik Crafts http://koolchikcrafts.blogspot.com/

ARKANSAS
Teela Young of Coffee24Tea http://coffee24tea.blogspot.com/

CALIFORNIA
Jess Marin of My Scrap Diary http://www.myscrapdiary-jess.blogspot.com/
Nicolette Simpson of Beyond Scrapin http://www.beyondscrapin.blogspot.com/

COLORADO
Jennifer Anderson of Scrappin Lil Turtle http://creativearmywife.blogspot.com/
Amy Courchaine of Scrapbooking, Card Making, and Living with Fibro http://lv2scrapandfibrofacts.blogspot.com/

DELEWARE
Meagan Jarjabka of Beyond Paper Designs http://beyondpaperdesigns.blogspot.com/
Peggy Brustman of CeltikGirlCreations http://www.celtikgirlcreations.blogspot.com/

FLORIDA
Stephanie Hedderick of Always Crafting http://www.alwayscrafting.com/

GEORGIA
Brenda Haskin of Simply Bren is Having too much fun http://simplybrenhavingfun.blogspot.com/

ILLINOIS
Lori Brown of Saving My… http://savingmine.blogspot.com/

INDIANA
Angela Urell of Creative Crafting http://creativecraftin.blogspot.com/

LOUISIANA
Darlene Saucier of Simple Southern Blessings http://www.talesoftayandbay.blogspot.com/

MAINE
Karen Madden of Lilac and Lupines http://lilacsandlupines.blogspot.com/

MARYLAND
Karen Turner of Midlife Mysteries & Masterpieces http://www.midlifemysteries.com/

MASSACHUSSETTS
Andrea Fogleman of Scraplity http://www.scrapality.com/

MINNESOTA
Krystal Gibson of Krystal’s Kreativity http://www.krystalskreativity.blogspot.com/
Jenny Johnson of Paper Crafting Crazy Me http://www.papercraftingcrazyme.blogspot.com/

MISSOURI
Kathy Northup of I Love My Crazy Life http://ilovemycrazylife.blogspot.com/

MONTANA
Kathy Floen of The Beautiful Life http://kathy-thebeautifullife.blogspot.com/

NEBRASKA
Gloria Sleeper of Oma’s Crafts http://www.omascrafts.blogspot.com/

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Kristal of Getting Cricky http://www.kandrewdesigns.blogspot.com/

NEW MEXICO
Brynn Thornburgh of Flair and Frills http://www.flairandfrillscreativity.blogspot.com/

NEW YORK
Erin Span of I am SpantastiKreations http://www.spantastikreations.blogspot.com/

NORTH CAROLINA
Amy Westray of redwolfSCRAPS http://www.redwolfscraps.com/

OHIO
Patricia Logan of MDN Creates http://www.triciatreasure.blogspot.com/
Joe, Carol, Joe, and Betty of CreateNCraft at http://www.createncraft.com/

OREGON
Rebecca Maddux of Crafting with Becka http://www.creationswithbecka.blogspot.com/

PENNSYLVANIA
Midori Vasquez of Scraps for Me http://www.scrapsforme.blogspot.com/

RHODE ISLAND
Karel Jennings of One by One the Flamingos are Stealing my Sanity http://karelj.blogspot.com/

SOUTH DAKOTA
Brenda Burffrau of Creativity is a State of Mind http://createbyburffrau.blogspot.com/ (You are here)

TENNESSEE
Shannon Lefew of My Scrappy Creations http://shannonleffew.blogspot.com/ (Next Stop)

TEXAS
Kista Orr of Scrapaleupagus at http://scrapaleupagus.blogspot.com/

UTAH
Kathy of Creative Cutter at http://www.creativecutter.org/

VIRGINIA
Chris Hanselmaan of Chris' Crafty Creations from the Corner http://scrappinchris.blogspot.com/

WASHINGTON
Mariam Satchell of Purple Lily Studio http://www.mariamsatchell.blogspot.com/

WISCONSIN
Janice Wilson of Stamping with Janice http://www.stampingwithjanice.blogspot.com/

WYOMING
Jamie Larsen of Baby Jayden’s Mommy http://babyjaydensmommy.blogspot.com/
Lindsay Loo of Lindsay Loo Designs http://www.lindsayloodesignz.blogspot.com/

END: Getting Cricky with K Andrew http://www.kandrewdesigns.blogspot.com/

Festive Friday 2-11

Welcome all to another Festive Fridays. If you are new to us, sit back, grab a cup of coffee, relax and enjoy some wonderful Christmas Cards. Yes, I did say Christmas. Festive Fridays will be every other Friday with samples of Christmas cards. This way, you can be making your cards all year long and you will avoid the mad rush when you could be enjoying the Christmas Season. You should have just come from Debbie. If you stumbled upon this post you can go back to Terri and start at the beginning. I will also have a complete list of the Festive Friday hop at the end of this post in case you get lost along the way.

Recipe:

5.5 x 4.25 card base (cream)

5.25 x 4 layer (green)

2 layer (white)

2 layer (burgundy w/snowflake design)

Ribbon

1.5 x 9 rosette (green)

Snowflake brad

Stamps (My Pink Stamper - Winter Punnies) - snowflake and Warmest Winter Wishes

Silver inkpad

This is probably the easiest and versatile card you can make.  It's not necessarily just a Christmas Card, you could use it for a Thank You card also. 

I hope you enjoy hopping through all the Christmas card ideas and hope to see you in two weeks. 

I am planning a much more elaborate card for you next time.

 
I hope you enjoyd my card and now your next stop will be Yolonda

Here is a complete lineup for all the next stops in case you get lost along the way:  

 

Terri Sproul 

Chris Hurley

Cheryl Lindsay 
Amanda Marks 
Debbie Buckland

Brenda Lee Burfeind (That's me)
Yolonda
Katie
cRaft gaRdeN

Debbie Feist

Valentine Treats

Good day all -

So I wanted to quickly post a valentine treat I made for my son's class.  Remember the treats bags I made (you can see them here)?  Well, he thinks they are too girlie and doesn't want to take them to school.  So back to the drawing board I went.  I have been scouring blogs looking for the right valentine and just hadn't come up with anything.  I stopped at my favorite Dollar Tree yesterday afternoon after work and found bags of sixlets.  They come in a tube and there are approximately 18 in each bag.  I had a brilliant idea.  I had seen someone somewhere using them for arms and legs...6 bags later and my SCAL and cri-kits and a little ATG action and this is what I made. 

The face is from Kandrewdesigns.  I purchased them from her a while back because I didn't have any face stamps and they were really reasonably priced.  Someday I will break down and purchase a stamp set...but these work just as well and I love using the cri-kits.  Besides, what I most like about digi stamps is that you can change the size to whatever you need unlike real stamp sets.  For instance I cut the hearts in SCAL at 3 inches and downsized the faces to match just the top half of the heart...do you get what I am getting at?  If I had regular stamp sets, the faces might be too small or too big, depending on the project.  Anyway, just wanted to share these valentines with you and he did say that these will work and he will take them to school.  LOL

As always, have a great day and god bless

Winner

Good day crafties

I have a winner for the Valentine Wreath guest design posting

#3 Debican - please email me your address so I can get this in the mail as soon as possible.

thanks all for visiting my blog and leaving comments.  We all know that is what we blog for.  I see I have 78 followers.  Next stop 100 and I will have some blog candy.

As always, have a great day and god bless

Heart Card - Tuesday Challenge

Good afternoon again!!!

Wow, another post today.  Scroll down for Wacky Wednesday challenge.

Momo over at Made by Momo has her bi-weekly challenge up.  You had to use Hot Pink, Black and White with a twist.  You had to incorporate a heart in the project.  I made a scalloped heart shaped card in SCAL.  I got the base 5 inches in black cardstock.  Then I layered it with a scalloped heart in hot pink cut at 4.75 inches with circles cut out of it, kinda has a doily affect.  Then another scalloped heart in white cut at 3.5 inches and topped with another scalloped heart in hot pink cut at 3.25 inches.  I ran the last layer through my cuddlebug using the hearts folder from sizzix.  I then inked direct to paper with white inkpad on the raised parts of the embossing.  My i-rock came in handy for this project.  Using the white pearl imaginsce I placed them within the cutout cirlces on the pink layer.  Again, another personal challenge, I used my scraps and stash.  Wooohooo I am on a roll.  LOL

As always, have a great day and god bless.

Sympathy Card - WWC

Hi again

Today is Wacky Wednesday Challenge over at More than Favors and it's another color challenge with Blue, White and Yellow.  I like color challenges because I don't always think outside the box.  I am staying on with my own challenge as using my scraps and stash also.  Today I made this sympathy card for my aunt's mom who passed away a couple of days ago.

The "With Sympathy" was cut at 2.5 out of the Jasmine Cart and shadowed with a sparkly blue cardstock.  The yellow flowers I've had in my stash forever.  I am not partial to the color yellow and have not found a need to use them until now.  I used "skittles" that I made myself with glue sticks and alcohol inks for the center of the flowers.  I stamped with white ink on baby blue paper this cool background.  Just used a standard blue ribbon and tied a bow.  Again, these challenges are for me personally so that I have an opportunity to "HAVE" to use my stash.  LOL

Thanks for looking and as always, have a great day and god bless.

Magnet Board Repurposed

Good day everyone

Today's posting is about repurposing.  As many of you know, I work in a Casino.  I love my job, but it can be pretty boring at times too.  I can do a lot of thinking there  LOL  Since I have gotten my gypsy, I spend many hours at work creating.  A couple of weeks ago, while at work, I was cleaning out one of our storage rooms and found these neat metal thingies.  I wasn't sure what they were for, but knew I could find a purpose for them.  I asked my manager and she said:  "What do you want them for, go ahead."  I guess they are for cashregister trays and we don't use them.  I explained I wanted to make a magnet board.  This is what it looked like before...

and this is what it looks like now.  I really like it alot.  It was very simple.  First I mod podged the scrapbook paper to it, but it didn't take...not sure why.  It became wrinkled and had airpockets.  Oh well, I scraped all the paper off and started over.  I adhered the scrapbook paper down with doublesided tape in a few places.  Then I took clear contact paper ($1 at the dollar tree) and cut it just a bit bigger than the metal tablet.  I placed that over the scrapbook papers and mitered the corners.  I made this cute flower and used one of my "homemade skittles" for the center.  Love this color combination.  Then I took some "groundwire" (my son-in-law works for a cable tv company and lets me go shopping in his truck for scraps)  LOL and made a hook to hang the magnet board.  I made some magnets out of those glass globs with scrapbook paper adhered to the back and viola  My magnetboard.





Rose distressed







Total cost:  Around $2 with the cost of contact paper and the scrapbook papers. I love repurposing things and really like this idea.  Let me know what you think.

As always, have a great day and god bless

Butterfly Gatefold Birthday Card

Good day all -

Today I want to share a gorgeous card I made.  At least I think it's gorgeous.  LOL  I am my own worst critic, but I REALLY love this card.  So much so that I am having a hard time giving it away.  Ha, ha.  No seriously, I made this card for my mom whose birthday is in two weeks.  I so totally cannot take credit for this card at all, since I cardlifted it from Momo.  She made a card over at More Than Favors for the Wacky Wednesday Challange using this beautiful butterfly.  I will not be entering this card in the challenge since I totally duplicated it.  When I saw it I knew I wanted to make one also.  Then I've been learning alot about the gypsy from Sheila over at She's a Sassy Lady.  She does these awesome videos for learning the gypsy and I've been following along with her instructions.  LOVE IT.  Anyhow, she had a tutorial on how to make a gatefold card.  I know, not that difficult, but using both ideas I came up with this.  Please go visit these three sites and give them some blog love and become a follower if you aren't already.  Now onto my card:



Recipe

Brown card stock 11 x 5 (measured with the butterfly welded) (scored at 2.5 and 7.5)

White card stock cut at 2 panels at 2 x 4.75 and 1 panel at 4.75 x 4.75

 2 shades of Pink carstock 

2 shades of Green cardstock

Rhinestones (colored pink and green)

Stamp (butterfly wishes)

Stamp (Birthday Blessings)

Wire

ATG

Zip Dry Glue

Velcro (for closure)

Rock Princess Cart

I started with a 10 x 5 card base on my gypsy mat and welded the shadow butterfly to the card base.  This gave it a cut of 11 x 5.  I cut the butterfly from the Rock Princess cart 2.5 x 3 and it's coordinating layers.  I only adhered the center of the butterfly to the green cardstock to make it 3D.  I cut the butterflies antennas off and added silver wire and curled it a bit.  I added the sentiment "Butterfly wishes" to the bottom of the front panel.  I added rhinestones that I colored myself to match the butterfly and adhered them to the front of the top and bottom right panel.  Inside I placed the white panels and stamped "Birthday Blessings".  I am really totally thrilled with this card.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.  Thanks for looking.

As always, have a great day and god bless.

Guest Designer at ... Giveaway

Good day all,

Guess what...I am a guest designer over at http://www.carsonscricutcreations.blogspot.com/.  About a month ago I received an email from Georgiana asking me if I would be interested in being a guest designer and create a Valentine project.  OOOH YEAH!!!  Really, I screamed that when I read her email.  Thank goodness noone was in the house that day.  My family already thinks I am weird enough.  They really do not understand my crafting addiction. If this is your first time visiting my blog, please use the "subscribe to email" button on the right sidebar so you won't miss a posting.  If you would like, I would love it if you became a stalker follower. Hehehe. Anywhoooo thanks so much for joining me today and now without further ado....

I purchased a round foam shape at Michaels. I wanted a heart one, but they were all out of stock. Really? I had some red/white polka dot tissue paper lying around and knew that would be the perfect combination. I modpodged the tissue paper to the foam shape.

That went pretty quick.  I did let it dry overnight and it became very hard and glossy.  Love it.  Then I used my gypsy and just cut a lot of different shapes. 













I used A Child's Year and Gypsy Font for my letters.  Mixed and match them.  I used Gypsy Wanderings, Paisley and Wedding Solutions for the other items.  It was kind fun using a bunch of different carts at once.  I normally only use one or two different carts at a time. 

The banner was cut at 7.4 by 2.5 using white cardstock from the Wedding cart.  I inked around it in red and then used a heart stamp I got from the dollar bin at Michaels to randomly stamp the hearts on it.  I really like the way it turned out. 

I added a lot of rhinestones here and there to give it some bling.  I love the bling, bling.  LOL 

The 3 hearts pins I just added for some dimension. I have no idea where they came from but they came to good use. 

 I had this awesome ribbon that says "Happy Valentines Day" and used just one secion of it. 

 I hope you enjoyed my project and if you would become a follower and leave a comment I will be giving one lucky winner 24 inches of this awesome ribbon and two cuts.  I will pick a winner on the 3rd and ship it out right away so you have it in time for your Valentine's project.

As always, have a great day and god bless.