Love Is In The Air and It's Blog Hop Time Over At BBTB2!

Hi Everyone, I'm back, lol! No Really, I'm Back, I've finally got my Mojo back! I never really understood when people said that but now I completely understand, LOL!

Well it's Monday and you all know that Monday's are new challenge day at Bitten By The Bug 2 and it's also the end of the month and that also means Blog Hop Time, Woo Hoo! Now if you hopped here from my Wonderful Design Team Sister Sandi your on the right track. And if you hopped here all on your own you can start right HERE. Now this weeks challenge is hosted by one of the other Lovely and talented Design Team Sister Maria. She picked the Love Struck cartridge and we were to use more than one cut from that cartridge and make a scrapbook layout or a card about someone or something you LOVE. Now I don't have that cartridge so I used Sweethearts and Sentimentals and I want to tell you, I just LOVE the way this layout turned out! And like I said before, I'm Back!

I used some glitter paper for the heart locket and the key is actually a Christmas ornament from Wal-Mart I got after Xmas on sale. When I seen them I thought, Key to my Heart right off the bat and bought quite a few in different colors and I will be making a few more cards for Valentines day with them. The chipboard glittered word "Heart" is from K&Company and I've had them for quite awhile, lol! I love the color combination too, kind of Vintage Retro, don't you think!?

Now the flowers are crepe paper and I made them myself. I've made ribbon roses before (years ago, lol) and remembered how to make them and just used the crepe paper which is real popular right now. I will try and add the tutorial I did on them later in the week, they are very easy and alot of fun.

I also added a little glittered frame for a little journal spot and another crepe paper flower, now all I need to do is find the perfect picture to add to this, maybe I'll get a picture of Ken and I and add it to it! Wow that would be a miracle in itself, lol!

Well Now you will be hopping on over to the Talented Maria's blog, wait till you see what she created, Beautiful! But that's to be expected from all of these amazing gals here at BBTB2. I also have some fun Blog Candy for you all! A Cricut Cartridge! One of my favs and with summer coming it should come in handy! Now my requirements aren't that difficult, You MUST be a follower and you MUST leave a comment, That's it! Easy Peasy, I will pick a winner on Saturday the 5th. You have a week to respond or I will pick a new comment. Well I hope you enjoyed this and hope you will join us with this weeks challenge over at BBTB2, you could win the cute Blinkie to add to your blog along with bragging rights. So have fun hopping and don't forget to leave your comments! Have fun and have a great week!

((Hugs)) and Take Care, Theresa

Cricut Circle Monthly Challenge!

 Well everyone here's my Cricut Circle Challenge for the month. Each month there is a challenge and this month it was to scraplift one of the Designers projects from the Circle Blog and I chose a project made by Nancy Damiano. You need to use two or more Cricut Cuts and you are also required to use at least two of the sponsors products and I chose to use Bazzill cardstock, and My IRock with bling, and some pearl brads, which is from Imaginese. It is a traditional Kissing Ball and I just fell in Love with it when I saw it and knew I would eventually make one, didn't know when, but when this challenge came up it was perfect timing.

 Nancy used the Cuttlebug Quilling kits and since I didn't have them (and couldn't find them when I had went to the city) I made the flowers using the Paisley Cartridge and layered them. Some of the print papers are old Music sheets. I also used some Fern Leaves from the Serenade and Wild Card Cartridges.

Boy it sure did take quite awhile, It seems like I cut a zillion flowers and then curled them and each layer has two petals so each flower has three layers and six petals, Wow, that's alot of petals! I almost didn't get it finished, I thought I had more time, I just can't believe this month is almost over, Wow, I better keep track of the time or it will be Christmas before I know it, LOL! 

Well here are some of the products I used from the sponsors and.................................................. 

 Here is Nancy's inspiration of the Traditional Kissing Ball. Isn't it so Pretty! I still love this and when I find those quilling kits I will do the actual one like this, See mine is flatter and I used bigger flowers but I still like it. So wish me luck and if I win I will be sure to let you all know. Thanks for looking and have a great rest of the weekend!

((Hugs)) and Take Care, Theresa

BBTB2 ARMADILLO! Why?..........Just Because! LOL

An Armadillo? Well it's Monday of course and you all know that Monday's are Bitten By The Bug 2 challenge day right? (And Oh What A Challenge This Was, lol!)

So what does an Armadillo have to do with BBTB2 you ask! Well my Lovely Design Team Sister Krista, chose the Armadillo from the Birthday Bash cartridge! Well I didn't have the Birthday Bash cart so Krista decided to let us also use a Whimsical Bird from any cartridge if you didn't have the Armadillo, 

but I knew I had seen an Armadillo somewhere.................. 

And Lo and Behold...........................................

I found it on the Imagine More Cartridge for the Imagine!

And since I don't really use my Imagine as much as should (to rectify the cost of Having to Have It, lol!) So what better way to take on a challenge then putting your boots on and jumping in with four feet (get it, the Armadillo has boots on!) LOL!

And "Just Because".......................

I had to add some Faux Stitching and bling to my card with the Teal Bling on the scallops! Everything is popped and layered and inked. To make the card base I used the Bloom Lite cartridge and welded two scallops together and then cut the Red scallop and embossed it with the Swiss Dots folder and the "Your One Of A Kind" and "Hi" is from the Wild Card cartridge. Even added a googly eye for Mr. Armadillo (Ken's idea, lol)! 

Now I won't lie to you all, I really do like all the layering with paper much more then using the Imagine. It is alot faster to do it with the Imagine and it takes all the guess work out of picking papers but it still doesn't have the dimension that the good ole fashioned layering does (but it does save some time if your in a hurry) And that's "Just my opinion", lol!

Well everyone, I sure hope you take on the weekly challenge with us over at BBTB2. And remember, if you don't have Birthday Bash or an Imagine with the Imagine More cartridge, please feel free to use any cartridge with a whimsical bird on it! And we all know that there are PLENTY of Birds on all those cartridges! So have fun with it, I Sure Did, LOL!

Thanks for stopping by, please leave me a comment letting me know how you like your Imagine, if you have one, I'm just curious if your happy with yours and if you use it alot or think you just got caught up in the hype of something new. Even if you don't have an Imagine Please leave your comments, I LOVE reading each and every one of them! Have a great week and hope to see you at the Challenge!

((Hugs)) and Take Care, Theresa 

BBTB2 Hummingbird Challenge, a Small Tutorial and Welcome Back After the Holidays!

Well Hello Everyone and Welcome Back! I sure hope your Holidays were everything you wanted them to be and more and your New Year is starting off great! Mine sure is and if you scroll down to my Saturday post you'll see I have some Great Exciting News to share with you all, my Friends! Well as we all know it's Monday, and Monday's are new challenge days for Bitten By The Bug 2. And this week our Lovely Design Team Sister Karen has picked the Hummingbird from Lyrical Letters for our Challenge this week. Well I have Lyrical Letters but when I went to use it in my Expression it wouldn't recognize it. I have no idea what happened but I've used it before and not had a problem so I have to see what is going on, if any of you have had that problem would you mind letting me know what you did to fix it, I hope I don't have to get a new cart, I haven't used it that much! Well anyway I just got Pagoda last week at Michael's with the $9.99 carts so I had to pick it up (You can't really pass up a $10 cart can you, lol) (Did anyone else get lucky and get some of those great deals?) Well Pagoda had a Hummingbird on it so it saved my fanny, lol! I wanted to do a layout and use some of those Great pictures I took over the summer of the Hummingbirds in my backyard but I couldn't find the disks to take to have them developed, so that will be another time for that. I also wanted to do a little tutorial for you also using the packing tape and glitter. I love to use this method and have used it quite alot on alot of my leftover pieces and when I want a little sparkle.

I made two cards this week because I just wasn't in the creating zone like I wanted to be and I did the green glitter card first and didn't like that it was very monotone so I had to do a contrasting card also. I don't know but I'm just not 100% happy with these. (I think I had too much time off and maybe put myself in a slump, lol) I had to make a Thank You card so I thought I could incorporate it into the challenge. I also added the handmade flowers, one is a crepe paper one and the other is a punched dictionary flower. Maybe I'll do a tutorial on  these one day also. Well on that note let's move on to the tutorial:

 First off cut out your image. I will usually use the "leftover's" of the cut I made and get an additional card or image but with this one I just added the tape onto the back of the image so the cut out areas have the glitter and add a bit of pizazz, lol.

 Make sure you add the tape to THE BACK SIDE of the image so the sticky part of the tape is sticking up.

 Next, sprinkle the glitter onto the sticky (up) side of the taped image.

 Use a small paint brush to move the glitter around onto all the exposed tape so the glitter sticks to it. (Make sure you do this on scrap paper or a tray so you can put the glitter back into the container and use it again!) And YES, it is very messy and you will look like you've been playing with the Fairies by the time your done, LOL! 

 And here is the finished products, what do you think? I just love the sparkle of the glitter and the possibilities are endless!

So here they are again. I just could not get a good picture of these, the darker glitter is actually a more brown colored glitter and it looks copper in the photos. I used a Gold Gelly Roll pen for the highlighting on the Thank You and the Smile and also on the Hummingbird and the Dictionary Rose and for the red on the neck of the Hummingbird I used a Red glitter pen. The gold highlights on the Crepe paper flower is a rub-on gold paint I had. Used the Swiss dots folder on the birds and added a rhinestone for their eyes. 

Now remember if you don't have Lyrical Letters you can use another cart with a Hummingbird on it, I used Pagoda and I know there's more out there but can't think of them right now, lol. So make sure you start the New Year off with a challenge with us over at BBTB2. Remember if you win you get that great Blinkie to add to your blog and of  course, the bragging rights to go along with it, LOL!

Well have a Great week and please take care out in the elements, There's all kinds of crazy weather all over the world so please, just be careful if you do have to go out in it, They had already called off school as of Sunday afternoon (it was -2 in the AM) so McCade is home from school AGAIN! We have really bad ice on the back roads and we live on the back roads so the bus can't get to alot of the kids because of the ice so it's better to be safe than sorry, but they will have to make up the time and it comes out of the summer vacation. So just remember, Please, Just Be Careful!

((Hugs)) and Take Care,

Theresa

Can You Believe It.......I'm A Cover Girl! LOL!!!

Yep that's my Layout on the Front Cover

of  The New Bug Magazine! Can you Believe it!??? Talk about being excited!

My first time being published

and then to get to be Honored with being on the Front Cover Of the very first Issue of The Bug Magazine!

 I have not been on my blog for quite awhile, needed a little time off and I did start a new part time job and Bitten By The Bug 2 took a couple of weeks off and now I really need to get back into the creating mood and this really made me want to CREATE! I have been so excited and so wanting to share these layouts with all of you and now I can finally show you all pictures of the actual layouts. This is one of my all time favorite's. These are pictures of my Mom and Dad when they were dating. Aren't they the cutest!  

 Then the other layout that was also in The Bug Magazine is this one! I love this one also and it was so much fun to plan out and put together. It is on page 24 & 25, a two page layout, woo hoo, how exciting is that! I even added a tip on how to add the curved border piece that was punched with the Martha Stewart punch and it is included in the magazine also with step by step directions. 

 I included a couple of side close ups of each of the pages. Don't you just love the wreath on the door and the little orange tabby cat and the wagon. I just love to add all the extra details to my layouts!

And then this side view has the swing in the tree and the bike at the front door. So much fun! I sure hope you guys take a look at the New Bug Magazine, I actually like it! The pictures are great and I think there are quite a few projects for a brand new magazine. Some people are not giving it a chance, and they are free to voice their opinion, but I think they are wrong! Come on gals, it's a new magazine and I think it can only get BETTER! (And I'm not saying that just because I'm in it, lol) there are some Really Great projects in it and I will definitely be submitting again (only not for the next issue, I missed the deadline, with Xmas and starting a new job I couldn't get my act together and missed the deadline, lol!) I've already got something in the works soooooooooo, we'll see! The price is reasonable, $5.99 and issue or $29.99 for a year subscription. So come on gals go check them out, The Bug Magazine. There's alot of talent out there with all you gals that are obsessed with your Machines and programs, yes you can send in projects made with "Other" machines other than a Cricut and the Sure Cuts Alot and Make the Cut software that some of you use so here's your chance, Submit, Submit, Submit, it can only get Better and Better, Right!!!!???? It is such a Great feeling to see all your love and passion (and hard work, lol) actually in print! 

Thanks for stopping by everyone, I've missed all of you and your wonderful comments, I'm looking forward to getting back in the swing of posting again and I have some exciting goals I've set for myself this year. Well I've accomplished one of my all time goals of getting published so now I have to set my goals a bit higher now, the only way to go is up from now on right, what do you think!

I'll be seeing you next week when BBTB2 will be back in full swing with lots of new challenges, make sure you stop by and chat with you soon!

((Hugs)) and Take Care,

Theresa