Happy Chanukkah

I've been very frustrated this year about the lack of scrapbooking supplies available for Chanukkah. I searched on Joann's.com and the search yielded 4 items. A cherry on Top yielded a few more and luckily they had some papers. I find this ridiculous and also unfair - there are a lot of scrapbookers that I know that happen to be Jewish. Last year, I had used the Crafting Jewish Style kits and was eager this year for an updated kit...alas, when I emailed them they said they weren't coming out with anything new this season. So I was on my own. This is what I've come up with so far:

I created these cards by cutting the dreidels with the cricut. I used Make the Cut to create the shapes (btw: the new version of the Make the Cut software is NOT compatible with the cricut as a reult of a lawsuit from Provocraft). I pieced the dreidels together and finished off the hay and shin with some blue Stickles.

The sentiment is from the Papertrey Jewish Add-ons set, though again there wasn't a whole lot to choose from. I found out later that Stampin' Up has some nice Jewish themed stamps and I bought a couple.

Lastly, I made this to hang over our fire place:

A Birthday Gift for my Dad

I liked the idea of making mini albums as gifts for people. Making a scrapbook for a guy isn't the easiest, since many of the colors i usually use can be considered girly. However, since I had a theme in mind, it wasn't too hard. I created this album for my dad with a sports theme featuring photos of my family in and around sporting events (note the pic of all of us in Giants' jerseys from like 1995...at 14, my look was still developing ;-)

The chipboard album is from the Little Yellow Bargains site and papers are Karen Foster and Paper House Productions. I made this before I bought my cricut, so I hand cut all of the pages to match the shapes of the chipboard.

My father has kept this photo on his desk for years, so I enlisted the help of my brother to take it, scan it and then put it back.

The most challenging part of the project was cutting out the pages, but once that was finished, it was very simple to finish up. The only issue I ran into was finding a place that sold 3 x 5 pictures, so I wouldn't have to crop them as much. But in the end I found them (www.dotphoto.com) and was happy with the way the project came out. It was a hit with my dad.

Giants Card

My brother and my dad are both obsessed with the New York Giants. So I thought it only fitting to create a card for my brother's 18th birthday that looked like a Giants' jersey. This was my first attempt at making a card in a shape other than a rectangle, and I was pleased with the result:

I made the card on my cricut, using Make the Cut...I found a shirt shape and welded them together to get the desired effect.

I gave it to my brother last night and he was just as happy with it as I was ;-)

World Card Making day...belated

I always really like the Halloween scrapbooking products, but I don't usually buy much of it since my husband and I don't usually do a whole lot for Halloween. This year, I bought a set of stamps from Unity stamps that were so cute I couldn't resist them. I made a set of 4 Halloween cards to send out to my family so I satisifed my Halloween craft craving.

I used the stamp and colored it in with a mixture of Copic and Zip markers. The Halloween paper is from a Die Cuts with a View stack that I've had forever and the background is just plain black cardstock.

This card is made with basically the same items, as are the next two:

I haven't made a lot of card sets, but it was fun to try to coordinate the cards and still make them unique.

10 Years Later...

It's been ten years since I was a junior in college, since my parents moved from Long Island to New Jersey. It's ten years since I got up and stopped in the Newhouse Cafe before Prof. Dubin's class for orange juice and a muffin and saw a group of people huddled around a television that was suspended from the ceiling. It was odd - the cafe was never crowded before a 9:30 AM class. I stopped and saw what they saw: a plane sticking out of the World Trade Center. I went into class, and Professor Dubin said that he was going to put on the news feed on the large screen in the auditorium. He did, and a few minutes later, the second plane hit. It was so unreal it was like watching a movie. I ran out of the auditorium with some others and pulled out the first cell phone I ever owned and tried to call my then-best friend, who went to college in the city. I couldn't get through.

Back in my room, I called my mother. I don't remember if I got through the first time or not, but I found out that my father's office in Philadelphia had been evacuated and he was on his way home. My mother felt alone; they were new in the neighborhood. She told me later that she felt out of place - that she should have been in New York on that day, at home on Long Island, not this new neighborhood where my family were strangers.

Classes weren't officially cancelled at SU, but they were held with varying degrees of attendance. I didn't want to sit in my room and wait for th phone to ring, couldn't sit glued to the tv and watch it over and over. I went to the classes that I had that were held. My Hebrew teacher was sad and listless - she was, after all, Israeli and from a place where attacks were all too common.I finally got a call from my dad when he was on his way home. He was ok and no one we directly knew was hurt. But out city was.

I remember calling my group of friends, my surrogate family and we all ate dinner together and comforted one another. We had a football game that got rescheduled for the next weekend and in band, we worked out a tribute show. I was lucky to have those friends together at that time and to be able to try to heal our shared pain together.

Fun with the Cricut

I recently got a Provocraft Cricut die-cutting machine,and I have to say I definitely a fan. I've had fun making things for layouts and also decorations for my classroom. I wanted to share a few of them with you:

The photo is a bit dark but the cutout I made is of Hello Kitty - this was my first try at paper piecing and I quite like the result.

My husband loves Snoopy, so I made this little guy for him and he now has it on his desk.

Lastly, I made this sign for my classroom. I'm going to hang it on the door with some other things that I'm still working on. I laminated it with the Xyron Creative Station, so hopefully that made it a little more durable to withstand the school year.

Jewish Holiday Layouts

So I bought the kits from Crafting Jewish Style when they were released last year because I was excited that I finally didn't have to sift through the Christmas papers to finally get a "winter" pattern...I could finally have some real life Chanukkah paper and embellishments to work with.

This is from a Chanukah night in our apartment, and I also added a menorah and candles from Jolee's Boutique.

This was my favorite Chanukkah layout - from pictures taken while celebrating at my parents' house...I didn't want to cover up the paper with the candles so instead, I cut it in half and had it meet in the middle like a centerfold.

This layout is from Passover and I liked using my Creative Memories wavy cutter to break up the printed paper.

I am so glad that there is finally kits for Jewish holidays!