Biltmore Christmas Tree Layout

 (Click on any image to see larger)

Hello friends it is December first, Cyber Monday, the first day on my Advent Calendar, AND Bitten by the Bug 2 day!!  I have a lot going on today so buckle in and let's get started!

My amazing design team sister, Jayne, selected this week's BBTB2 Cricut Challenge.  Sadly, because I am a total bone head sometimes, I tweaked her challenge.  Jayne asked the team (and you) to craft a Christmas card with a Cricut cut Christmas Tree.  Miss "I can read" here spent a few hours creating a two page layout, complete with Christmas Trees, only to discover when I added my photo to the Bitten by the Bug 2 blog that I was supposed to make a card!!  I was too tired after a weekend of Christmas decorating, house cleaning, and finishing my Christmas shopping to start over again at 7:30 pm Sunday night!  So in a most high-handed manner, I tweaked the challenge to include my layout!!  (Sorry Jayne!)

As you already know, Doug and I went to the Candlelight Christmas at Biltmore to celebrate our anniversary the weekend of November 22.  We purchased a 5 x 7 inch photo package after our tour - a photo of us and a photo of the house.  The Christmas Tree challenge (since I missed the word CARD) seemed like the perfect opportunity to get this two photos scrapped and the pages booked!  

I used my Cricut Explore and three cartridges to complete the two page layout.  The cartridges I used are:  Winter Woodland, Family Album, and Holiday Cards 30.  I really liked the Merry Christmas layout on the Family Album cartridge but I wanted to edit the layout a bit.  I deleted one of the two ornaments and one of the strands of lights.  I also deleted the shadow layer of the Merry Christmas phrase.  

I cut the layout page elements twice, after the edits.  I thought the plaid Graphic 45 card stocked looked great as a matting and matched my Christmas colors well.  By using only two of the four ornaments I would have had if I cut all of the elements twice, I made room to include my elegant Christmas Tree cuts.  

The Christmas Trees and the Jingle Bells are both from the Winter Woodland cartridge.  I thought the elegant embellishments worked with the colors and the photos.  I did use two of the strands of Christmas lights from the Family Album layout just to add a touch of fun.

The final element of the card was cut using Cricut's Holiday Card #30.  I took the house and tree cuts as an overlay on the Biltmore House page.   For a final touch of elegance, I trimmed the pages to 11.5 x 11.5 inches and matted the pages onto black card stock.

Keep reading below for three amazing deals.  #1 is for today only, #'s 2 & 3 will continue all month long!

Anniversary Weekend Getaway

Hello friends.  Doug and I are away this weekend celebrating our thirty-third wedding anniversary.  We are visiting the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.  We have been to Biltmore twice previously with our family, but this is our first solo trip and our first trip during the Christmas Season. 

I ordered tickets to the Candlelight Christmas Evenings at Biltmore Estate late last summer.  The Estate can be visited during the day throughout the Christmas season, or for a special treat, you may purchase Candlelight Evening tickets. 

I am looking forward to seeing all of the rooms decorated for the Christmas.  I confess that I am itching to decorate my own home, though somewhat LESS dramatically than the Biltmore decorators!  I have been receiving daily updates on decorating and seasonal events at the Estate... building the anticipation.

Did I mention that prior to our eight o'clock evening tour time we have dinner reservations on the estate?  I will have to keep you posted on what all of the details.

The Candlelight Evenings are supposed to include seasonal entertainment throughout the house:  dancers, choirs, and musicians, all to the glow of candlelight.

Did I mention that you can also take sleigh and carriage rides?  You can participate in many outdoor activities during the daytime hours.  Biking, hiking, and horseback riding to name a few.

 Info about Candlelight Christmas Evenings:

November 7, 2014–January 3, 2015

Explore Biltmore House during holiday evenings when candles and fireplaces fill the grand home with a warm glow, accenting delicate ornaments and priceless treasures with metallic shine and sparkle, and music warms the heart. This year, book a Candlelight Christmas Evening at Biltmore to make holiday memories with your family that will last a lifetime.

Your evening admission includes:

• Reserved evening visit to Biltmore House
• Daytime access to Biltmore Gardens and Antler Hill Village & Winery on the same day as your evening visit or the next day
• Free parking

For more information, including ticket prices and other details, click THIS LINK.  Remember you may also make your dining reservations and hotel reservations on the Biltmore website.

 http://www.biltmore.com/visit/plan-your-visit/buy-tickets/candlelight-evenings

Fall Baby Shower for Baby Avaleigh

Hello friends. Today I am going to share with you some of the details from the baby shower my mom and I hosted for Bethany, John, and baby Avaleigh!  The baby is due in mid-January so we decided to host a baby shower before everyone becomes entangled in their holiday madness.  With that in mind, and the advent of beautiful warm, clear fall weather, we decided on a fall themed outdoor baby shower!

As much as I hoped to by-pass the craziness of everyone's Thanksgiving till New Year's schedules, I still selected a bad weekend for the baby shower.  So many people were out of town for one reason or another.  But our friends being the AMAZING women that they are, they dropped off or mailed gifts to arrive for the shower!  How wonderful is that?

We decorated with fall colors and served a variety of fall themed foods.  In addition to ham salad and egg salad finger sandwiches, we also had corn casserole muffins, a savory pumpkin shaped cheese ball with crackers, a sweet pumpkin cheese ball (which tasted like pumpkin cheesecake) severed with gingersnaps and graham crackers, a veggie tray and dip, chips and dip, and a create our own caramel apple station.  I put put honeycrisp apple wedges on skewers and had a small pot of war caramel with several toppings in which the caramel apple wedges could be dipped.

For beverages we severed an apple cider sangria as well as sodas and assorted bottled waters.

I must tell you, baby Avaleigh is going to be one well dressed baby when she arrives. Bethany and John received so many adorable outfits, baby gadgets, tools, diapers, and nursery decor, they were thrilled and overwhelmed!

John stayed for the entire shower, assisting as needed and opening several of the gifts.  He is so looking forward to their baby girl!

We passed around most of the gifts so that everyone could get an up-close look at all of of the darling baby girl clothes and gear. and oooh & ahhhh appropriately! Below MFK, my friend Kathy, admires one of the sweet outfits Avaleigh received.

After the shower we took a few minutes to snap a few family photos. Below are Bethany and I.

Avaleigh should be feeling the love in the photo below.

And of course, John and Bethany are thrilled about becoming parents!

Thanks for stopping by today.  I still have projects to share with you this week, so check back soon!

Beautiful Bride Dress Form Layout

 (click the photos to enlarge)

 Hello friends!  I know I have been missing for two weeks(!!) and though I do have an excuse/reason, I will not bore you with the details and just say that I AM BACK!!  I have missed crafting so much - especially scrapbooking. While Doug stayed with my mom, I spent several hours in my scraproom this weekend working on this layout.

My darling Design Team member, Maureen, is hosting this week's Bitten by the Bug 2 Cricut challenge.  Maureen challenged us to use either a Cricut cut DRESS FORM or a Cricut cut DRESS.  I chose to use the dress form cut from the French Manor cartridge - the first Cricut Circle cartridge.

I cut the dress form in two colors - medium brown and champagne.  I wanted the stand to be darker than the form itself. 

Using my Cricut Explore for the Cricut cuts on this layout, I also used Cricut Design space and a font on my computer to cut the page title, Beautiful Bride.  I love that like other bands of cutting machines, the Cricut Explore also cuts fonts and SVG files!  Yay!  I used the font "Lavenderia Study" for the title.

I used several thin dies for cuts on these pages - the corners, a couple of the mats, and the flowers and leaves.   I cut the flowers in vintage white cardstock, stamped the blossoms with  Blush Pink pink ink, then I sponged 3D Stempel Farbe (Stamp Paint - in Rose Metallic) onto the petals.  I used a stylus and rubber mat to shape the flower petal layers.  I glued the layers together then applied a hint of cocoa brown ink to the edges of the petals to age them.

The base paper - I purchased this vintage looking card stock at the Creating Keepsakes Convention specifically to scrap Bethany's vintage wedding.

In the photo above Bethany's maid of honor, Bailey, was finishing up Bethany's make up and hair, placing the vintage hair piece I purchased for her.

In the photos below Bethany is allowing her bridesmaids and I to dress her in her bridal gown.  We were very careful not to smudge her make up or muss her hair!  I had the honor of lacing her in her dress.  Sigh.....

Not having been in my scraproom for some time, I have to say that I LOVED making this layout.  I love all of the lacy cuts and vintage flowers.  I cannot wait to scrap more of the wedding photos.  And I thought that Maureen's challenge - the Dress Form, was perfect for this layout!!

We hope that you decide to join us this week at Bitten by the Bug 2.  Create a project using a Cricut cut Dress or Dress Form, tell us which cartridge you used, then link to the original post at BBTB2.  

Thank you for stopping by today!!!   

One More Wedding Post

Hey there!  I am back with what I hope may be one final wedding blog post!  This last weekend we received the professional photographs of Bethany and John's wedding day.  It was such a beautiful day, beautiful, wedding, and beautiful bride, and I am so happy that the professional photographs capture the beauty and love of the day.

I am starting with a couple of family photographs.  The top photo is, of course, Doug and I with our daughter.  She is towering over us in her heels and looking so stunning.

The second photo is our family - new members too!  And below is our family, complete with my mom, or as the kids refer to her, Granny!

I thought I would give you a quick peek at some of our decor.  This is the table top arrangement we used.  Bethany found the fun wood votives and the trinket boxes.  I found the little lanterns and the mercury glass votives.  I had succulents growing in my kitchen for five months to use on the table and to enhance the arrangements.  Finally, I made the table runners using 12 inch wide burlap and 5 inch wide lace sewn over top of the burlap.

One of the really sweet and unique decoration we made was the photo filled antique window.  We enlarged Bethany and John's engagement photos and placed them in the window panes.  We used two of these large windows and an antique door with glass panes, all containing photos, to decorate various areas.

As you can see above and below, our caterer really embraced our vintage/rustic theme.  Their sets up were fabulous, as was the food they provided.

No, they did not serve dip from the container!!  The photographer wanted to photograph the buffet areas before the caterer was quite ready.

And now for the final wedding craft:  I created a banner for the front of the cake table. Originally we planned to use an antique buffet from which to serve the cake.  However the base of the cake was too large for the buffet so we ended up with a regular table (boo).  However, the extra touches we had, decorated cupcakes displayed on my pink depression glass sandwich server, flowers, and the banner I made for the cake area all helped to cover for our inability to use the buffet.

The banner was made using my Cricut and Pretty Pennants cartridge.  It looked lovely on the front of the table.

The cake looks great - and it tasted great! It is missing the topper in the top photo.  They used a small bird nest with two little love birds, carrying through the rustic and love birds theme.

If you peek around Bethany and John feeding one another cake, you can catch a glimpse of the banner.

The cake was not our only dessert.  As a surprise, we also had ice cream cones, which many people loved!  It was a fun idea for a warm evening and many of the guests enjoyed ice cream and cake!

I am straight up going to confess that I spent so much time working on a wedding book at blurb.com that I did not make this week's BBTB2 project.  Our sweet DT sister Maureen challenged the team and all of you to use a Cricut cut Owl on a project this week.  I hope you will take time to go by Bitten by the Bug 2 and share some love AND consider joining the challenge this week.

I will be back with some actual paper crafting later this week!!

Wedding Crafts - Still Awaiting Professional Photos

Hello everyone!  There are still wedding crafts and details to share, though I have decided I am not going to await the professional photographs to show you how some of the crafts were used.

As many of you know, Bethany and John are both public school teachers.  We did not want the wedding to be overwhelmed with all things school related, but we did want a couple of cute teacher inspired touches.  I designed their wedding favors (above) to reflect their profession.

I found natural wood pencils on-line that could be orderd personalized.  I order a ton of personalized pencils, but as I understand it, Bethany and John will be using the leftover pencils in their classrooms this fall.

I found two print and cut images in the Silhouette America store:  the report card and the Always & Forever image.  I combined the two, placing the Always & Forever image onto the report card.  I then used the add text feature and personalized the report cards with "Bethany & John", "7/5/14", and "Thank You".  I printed the altered report cards onto cream colored 8.5 x 11 inch card stock, four per page.  I used my paper trimmer to cut the report cards apart.

I purchased mini-composition books (3 for $1 at Dollar Tree) to use as our base booklet.  With the help of my scrappy girlfriends, Bethany, and her matron of honor, we covered all of the book with brown card stock.

My friends then glued the report cards to the brown covered booklets.  I had planned to used pink and white twist twine to tie the pencils to the booklets, but I will be honest - that became too labor intensive during the last two weeks before the wedding!  So, I placed the pencils in a round clear cylinder vase and placed that in a large rectangular Longaberger basket full of the notebooks.

The favors were not my only print and cut project of this wedding - I also made personalized print and cut tags for the hospitality bags.  Keeping with the pink and brown colors, I printed the tags on to pink card stock and affixed the tags to the tan and brown love bird hospitality bags.

The bags were filled with local information, maps with points of interest, restaurants, etc.  There were "About Aiken" booklets.  I made a personalized map that included all of the venues with an attached page of written directions to all of the venues:  Rehearsal, Bridal Breakfast, Groom's Luncheon, Wedding and Reception.  There were personalized bottles of waters that matched the printed tags and there was homemade baked honey chex mix.   I had also purchased tea from a South Carolina tea plantation - the oldest in the country, but I forgot to add it to the bags!!

I also made bags and tags for the children who planned to attend the wedding.  We had eight children coming, six family members and the children of special friends (one of their daughters had been in John's classroom last year so it was especially fun for her to attend the wedding).   Anyway, I found wedding themed  activity coloring books (with crayons) for the kids bags.  I purchased a huge box of play-dough and split the containers among the bags.  I added candy necklaces and toys.  For the girls there were Playmobile Bride and Groom characters and for the boys there were Playmobile soldiers and pirates.  I added Legos to the older boy's bag.  And as you can see, I carried the love bird theme through on to the print and cut tags.

The bags for the children were placed in an antique tool box for me to hand out at the reception - they looked wonderful!  I think this was a fun surprise for not just the children, but for their parents as well.

I am still hoping that we will receive the professional photos soon.  I promise to share more of the fabulous shots when they arrive.