Challenge Me Monday #57 and Cricut Crawl WINNER!!!

Hi Faithful and Loving Followers,

First off, I want to say thank you so much for your patience with me for picking a winner for the FCCB Cricut Crawl!  I have FINALLY gotten around to that and the random generator drew a very sweet winner... #43 - KATIEO!  Katie you are the lucky winner of the Paisley Cricut Cartridge.  Please email me at amyjrockstar at gmail dot com with your info so I can get it right out to you!

katieo said... 43


I am so glad I found your blog. I love your style. Your card has so many elements and details. I am a new follower, who also found out recently the advantages of owning a Gypsy

Lucky gal huh?  Well no worries, as I will be having many more giveaways and lots more fun in the future.  Hopefully you will all continue to hang in there with me as I battle these health issues!  I will do my best to post as often as I can and keep creating.

Now, onto the FCCB challenge for this week.  This week is challenge #57 - Mom's The Word.  As part of the Design Team (and for others who want to enter the challenge), the challenge was to create a card with the word Mom, Mommy, Mother, etc. somewhere on the card and of course at least one cut on your card must be a Cricut cut.  Well, I kinda skimped on the "mom" word, but it is on there!  I decided to make a card for my mom that I knew she would like, using her favorite color, purple.  FYI, the inside is not finished yet.  I am looking for the perfect quote from one of my vellum quote books to put in there.  Below are my pics and details.

Mother's Day Deer Card

Mother's Day Deer & Butterfly Closeup

Mother's Day Border Closeup

Mother's Day Dimensional View

For this card, I had the original idea of making a card with a big "Mom" on there, but I've done that so often that I decided to go in the complete opposite direction and this is what I ended up with.  I wanted to use colors my mom likes and she loves deer so I thought that was appropriate for a card for her. 

Supplies

• Cardstock - From stash and from Recollections, Used paisley cuttlebug folder on background
• Printed paper for butterfly border - Stampin' Up
• Deer and butterfly, butterfly border - Give A Hoot Cricut Cartridge
• Flower sticker & heart border sticker - Basic Grey, Kioshi element stickers
• Butterfly brad - My newest and favorite embellishment shop from whom I won awesome blog candy, Creative Charms!!! I have to give a little shout out here b/c if you haven't checked out this shop yet, you absolutely must!  They have the most unique embellishments and the prices are very reasonable for the amount and variety you get.  I was really pleasantly surprised with my first order and then I won blog candy there too!  I will be ordering from there a lot in the future.  If you head there and place an order please let her know I sent ya!
• Inked edges - Colorbox
• Pop dots - Recollections
• Adhesive - Tombow Liquid Glue
• Mom, Butterfly on nose details, eye of deer - Zig pen

There you have it!  My first, but not last, Mother's Day card for the season.  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and as always, I love your comments!  Don't forget to head over to Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog to create you own card and play along for a chance at a great prize!

Thanks, you guys, for following my blog and taking the time to check out my creations.

XO ~ Amy Jo

My Request to my Friends

Hi All,

As you know from my previous post, I have been sick with a staph infection and that caused me to develop thrush! Yuck!  It's been a very rough couple of weeks over here and I am behind with absolutely everything.  I haven't even picked a winner from the Cricut Crawl yet and I apologize for that.  I will do that this week and get it posted.

I just wanted to write a little bit about some personal things that I wanted to share with you all.  When I first started this blog, I honestly didn't know where I wanted to go with it or what would become of it.  I figured I'd write a little here and there and kind of have this as a journal that everyone could view because if I could touch even one person's life, I would be doing a great thing.  I believe this blog has touched more than one person and I can't tell you how happy I am about  that.  I am so happy that I have all of you, my blogging friends, to keep me company on these lonely days, when I'm home by myself with my multitude of illnesses.  It's amazing how much it helps just knowing I'm not alone.  Not really anyways.

I've been feeling so ill lately that it's gotten me quite down, mentally as well.  I haven't crafted, have barely answered my phone, haven't eaten properly or really taken care of anything.  Today is the last day for that!  I called my good friend and she helped get me on track. (We all need someone to do that for us sometimes.)  So here I am, trying to write this to hold myself accountable.  I need some help to keep motivated to help myself so I decided that writing this, maybe some of you could help encourage me to keep going and keep doing things that are good for my body and my soul.  That's why I'm writing today... to reach out to you, my friends, to help me with my journey to healthfulness. 

Fibromyalgia is very complex in itself, but besides that, I have a lot of other issues, some of which very few people have ever heard of.  One of them being a digestive issue that I am really struggling with right now.  I've been having issues since October with my digestive system and I've had about enough of it.  I have to go on a super restrictive diet (yes I'm very tiny and I'm not dieting for weight loss, but for health reasons only), but I've been procrastinating for a long time.  I'm at the point where I can't wait any longer.  The bloating and sick feeling I constantly have has just become to much to live with so now it's time to deal with it and become proactive!  You might all be wondering why I'm writing about that here, and I'll tell you, when you put something like this (a goal of sorts) out there in the universe, it helps to say it out loud to keep you accountable!  By that, I mean, people are aware of what you are trying to do and you are not just doing this by yourself.  You have other people counting on you to do this and that's what I need.  I need some motivation because just lying here in bed thinking about it all day is certainly not getting me anywhere!  I need your help.  I need your support and your questions and your comments.  I need some partners who want to get healthy too, whether it be physically, spiritually, or mentally healthy, it doesn't matter.  Just healthy!  It's hard.  It's so hard to do it on your own and ultimately there is only you that can control your actions and make you really do the work, but when you know you have told other people what you are doing, it makes you much less likely to slack off.  So, there it is.  Accountability.

If anybody has any questions as to what is going on with me on a deeper level, please feel free to email me or leave questions.  I welcome them very much!

Now, I have a little list of goals and things I'd like to share with you and put out there, and then I'll stop rambling and you all can get back to the fun things in life like scrapping! :0)  My personal goals for the near future are as follows:

• Take my vitamins and increase them to tailor them specifically to my needs (I sell some of the best vitamins out there; it's high time I start using them!) Please, if anyone is interested in learning about the vitamins I sell and the essential oils, I'd be so happy to share my knowledge with you.  I have studied and learned so much and have been ale to help many people with this knowledge.
• Get back into using my essential oils (once again, I sell one of the best brands and they help so much).
• Now that spring is almost here, I need to get outside and walk.  I can't do a lot of exercise because of the fibro, but it is one of the best things you can do for fibro!  Go figure!  Light yoga and walking are best, so that's what I plan on doing.
• I really want to start weaning off of my medications.  I take more medicines than most 80 year olds.  I have row after row of bottles.  It's unbelievable! 
• I need to get back to my healthy reading.  I used to read everything on the subject of health that I possibly could.  You can never learn too much and you should never stop learning.  I have several books I want to read right now including:  The Inflammation Syndrome, Coping with Chronic Illness, and Treating and Beating Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  If any of you would like more info on these, please ask!  I have a huge library of books such as these that I actually have read and can recommend.  These are just a few of the ones I haven't gotten to yet.
• I am in a business that provides me with amazing motivational tools such as cds and books.  I used to listen to them all the time and I was a much happier person!  So, I need to get back to listening to these.  As corny as it sounds, people, these really do help!  I scoffed at the idea myself at first, until I realized how excited about life I was after listening to a cd or two.  Being around positive influences leads to positivity in you!
• Don't lose focus or hope.  I'm struggling with that right now.
• Meditation and affirmations.  As simple as that.
• Keep up with my crafting and things that make me happy.  I haven't crafted in over a week and in fact, I even cancelled a job I had for creating Easter cards because I have been so sick (mentally and physically).  I'm letting the illness take over me and am losing my grip on what keeps me sane.  No more of that!  I need some help!  Any thoughts on how to stay focused would be much appreciated.
• Lastly, don't be afraid to reach out for help and write about it if I must.  This is key.  It's very hard for people, in general to ask for help.  We are taught to be strong and to keep it all inside and just deal with it.  Well, I can only handle so much by myself and I'm okay with asking for help.  The people that truly care about me will be happy I asked and happy to help and that is something to remember.

Thank you all so much for being there for me through all this and for those of you who took the time to read this.  It means the world to me, knowing how many people I have on my support system.  I couldn't do it alone so thank you.  I appreciate each and every email, comment, and follower I get.  You keep me going.  Bless you all!


In love and light,
XO ~ Amy Jo

Shelley Bean Stamps

Hi All,

If you get a chance swing over to Shelley Bean Stamps to pick up a free beautifiul digi stamp!

Enjoy!

XO ~ Amy Jo

Quick Note

Hi everyone,

I am just writing a quick note to let you all know I will be choosing a winner for the Spring Fling Cricut Crawl in a few days.  I was supposed to participate in another hop tomorrow, but I am very sick.  I have a staph infection, along with everything else so regretfully, I'm running behind!  I will post as soon as I feel a little better.  Thanks to all for bearing with me through this.

Hugs,
Amy Jo

The Versatile Blogger

The story goes that this blog award has the purpose of bringing to light bloggers who are creative, make wonderful creations, but have less than 300 followers. And the rules ask that you...
1. Thank the person who sent you this award.
2. List 7 things about yourself.
3. Send this to 15 bloggers

1.1 - Thank you so much Leeann from Leearts for picking me for this award!  I am so stoked to receive it and very honored.  Leeann is a sweet gal who happened to win some candy on my blog a while back.  I'd appreciate it if you'd all go check out her blog.  It's worth your time, I promise! :0)

2.1 - I have a lot in common with Leeann!  If you read her blog there are several quirks that we share such as not being able to cook or craft unless the area has been tidied or cleaned up.  I always clean up my workspace for the next morning and my hubby thinks I'm crazy for doing so.  He says, what's the point?  It'll just get messed up anyways and I counter that argument by letting him know how much time it saves to have all your items back where they're supposed to be instead of piled a mile high and having to dig through them the next day.  Wouldn't you agree? :0)

2.2 - I am a workaholic....er, I used to be.  Before I had fibro I had two jobs here in Fort Collins, but before I moved I had 4 part time jobs and one full time job.  I can't sit still so having fibro is extremely difficult for me because you are not supposed to overdo it and not supposed to over work yourself.  It's taking me forever to master the art of relaxing!

2.3 - When I am "relaxing" I do the following all at once... watch tv, /work on the Internet, read either a book or magazine, eat, and if I'm lucky, craft.  All at the same time!  As I mentioned, I do not like to relax.

2.4 - I have horrible insomnia and have had it off and on for years

2.5 - I have so many ambitions and business ideas that I can't seem to get to them quick enough!  I am very ambitious and love to take on anything I can.  I believe I'm here to help other people in many other ways, especially when it comes to helping them learn about fibromyalgia.  I love to share what all I've learned.

2.6 - I really want to work for a magazine, write a book (or several) and be published in one of the craft magazines. :0)  Those are goals I've had my whole life.  If anyone can help me with those, please let me know!  Even just a nod in my direction would be so helpful.

2.7 - I always wanted to be a rockstar.  Hence the nickname and username. LOL (AmyJRockstar) and I was going to school online through the Academy of Art University in San Francisco for a BA of fine arts in Fashion Design.  I loved it soooooooo much, but then I got ill and haven't been able to go back.  I channel my creativity in other ways now and really, I'm very happy with that.  :0)

Phew!   Hope I didn't bore you all to death with that info.  Thanks for bearing with me!


3.  Now I have to choose 15 blogs to receive this award!  That's a lot of blogs. I will post as soon as I have them all figured out. :o)  It might take me a day or two but I have a few in mind already!

Thanks again Leeann for choosing me and thanks to all my lovely followers for all of your support and encouragement with this blog.

XO ~ Amy Jo

FCCB Spring Fling Cricut Crawl

Welcome to Scrapping, Card Making and Living with Fibro (Fibromyalgia) and the fifth Fantabulous Cricut Crawl...Fantabulous Cricut's version of a blog hop!


It's Spring Time, even though some places may not look like it :) and everyone at Fantabulous Cricut has decided to have a Spring Fling! Each Design Team member will be featuring an original Spring project that includes Pink, Green and Yellow on it along with at least one Cricut cut.


I am super excited to be here today!  I am so lucky as to be a part of (let alone, the first stop!!!)  this Cricut Crawl!  I  get to work with a wonderful design team over at FCCB and today's the day we are showing you what we are all about!  I am glad you all could join us.  You will find some great creations and lots of fun goodies along the way.  Curious if I'm having blog candy?  Guess you'll have to just read through this post and find out! ;) 

Make sure to check out each DT member's blog for some awesome inspiration! There will be PRIZES along the way at some of our DT members' blogs, AND there will be a Grand Prize up for grabs at FCCB for one participant that submits a "Spring Fling" project at FCCB!


How fun is that?

You won't want to miss a single stop along the way.  Since I am the very first stop, you probably came here directly from the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog or you are in luck for checking my post directly today!  There is a list at the bottom of my post of all the participants so you won't get lost along the way. 

I used all the colors required in the challenge and then some.  My Cricut cut is the word "Spring" from the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge which came with my Gypsy.  When I first saw a Gypsy, I thought, really what would anyone need one of these for?  I didn't think I'd ever have a use for one.  Boy was I wrong!  If you own a Cricut you NEED this machine!  It is sooooo incredible and tons of fun.  It allows you to do things you can't do on your cutting machine.  I highly recommend checking it out if you don't already own one.  Plus, the cost has come way down!

Onto my project...  I decided I really wanted to do something other than a card this time and I couldn't do a layout because I really couldn't think of any good pictures to put on it so I created a cute 12x12 page to frame and hang up on the wall.  I think I will do one for each season and switch them out! 

*I am sorry for all the pics, but many were needed to get the full effect.  Please feel free to skip through the details so you can get through the hop.  I just wrote them out for people who are interested.

Details:   I just loved this background paper from my K & Company Snuggle Bug paper pack.  The photos aren't the greatest (I apologize) and don't do it justice.  You should be able to enlarge them, by clicking, to get a better idea of the actual colors.  Next, I found the cutest cutout 12x12 sheet from Fancy Pants, called Kraft Kuts #2 - made from Kraft paper.  That's where the awesome tree and birds and flowers came from.  Talk about making a simple project! ;)  Also, the sunshine is from there and I added glossy accents to the center, but on camera it looks like an egg yolk! LOL Ooops!  Not quite what I was going for.  I used some magenta cardstock and paper from my stash (that I won!) for the "Spring" word and as I mentioned before, the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge for the cut.  I stamped a little loop de loop by the bee with Colorbox inks and a loop de loop from We are Memory Keepers - Maple Grove.  The cloud is stamped (beginnings) and the sticker in the middle of the tree says "Make the most of every day".  Something I truly believe in. :0)  The caterpillar and butterflies are actually cardboard stickers from Cosmo Cricket - Pixie Liscious.  The cloud is from a Crate Paper cutout sheet - Katlin Collections, Impression Die Cuts.  I also used Stickles on the bee's wings and the tree.  The bottom border came from another cutout sheet in my stash.  Finally, I pop dotted a lot of the cute little die cuts and inked the edges of the whole sheet.  Whew!  That was a lot of information.  So sorry bout that, but I get nutty if I forget one little thing! :p

Spring Wall Art

Spring Wall Art Tree Closeup

Spring Wall Art Bottom Left Closeup

Spring Wall Art Bottom Right Closeup

Spring Closeup

Spring Wall Art Sunshine Closeup



Now for the BEST part.... drumroll please..... and the winner will get.... a Paisley Cricut Cartridge!!!  I have won a few cartridges and it brought me so much joy that I have decided to pay it forward and send out a cartridge to one lucky person!



All you have to do to win this is, be or become a follower and leave a comment with a way to get a hold of you. That's it! Super easy. :0) And yes, this is bribery to get you to come back to my site and to be my friend. ;0)

Now it's your turn! Let's see your Spring Fling projects! Make sure to include a Cricut cut somewhere on your project and Pink, Green and Yellow!



Your next stop is the lovely and talented Audrey.  Go see what she has in store for you today... And when you're done, make sure to link up your project to FCCB's Fantabulous Cricut Crawl post to be entered into the contest!


Thanks for crawling with us! 

XO ~ Amy Jo (FCCB Design Team))

1. Amy: http://lv2scrapandfibrofacts.blogspot.com/  - That's Me

2. Audrey: http://www.paperartbyaudrey.com/ - Next stop

3. Barb: http://bugbites411.blogspot.com/

4. Dana: http://iwycd.blogspot.com/

5. Evanna: http://evannas-paper-palace.blogspot.com/

6. Helen: http://www.craftingcricutmom.com/

7. Jamie T: http://jmecreations.blogspot.com/

8. Jenae: http://justjenae.blogspot.com/

9. Jennie: http://earthyscrap.blogspot.com/

10. Kate: http://smallbitsofpaper.blogspot.com/

11. Larelyn: http://handmadefromtheheart-designsbylarelyn.blogspot.com/

12. Lisa C: http://lisa-craft-blog.blogspot.com/

13. Lisa N: http://prettypaperprettyribbons.blogspot.com/

14. Maquel: http://papermaineiac.blogspot.com/

15. Marlene: http://scrappincookie.blogspot.com/

16. Rae: http://wahoocrafts.blogspot.com/

17. Robin: http://robinscreativecottage.blogspot.com/

18.Sandee: http://sandeeallen.blogspot.com/

19. Sarah: http://sarahvaitstamps.blogspot.com/

20. Saundra: http://luvscrappingtogether.blogspot.com/

21.Tamara: http://happylifecraftywife.typepad.com/blog/

22.Tanya: http://nonnascraftcorner.blogspot.com/



FCCB Challenge #54 - April Showers

Hello Beautiful Friends!  It is time for another Challenge Me Monday challenge over at the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog.  This time the challenge is to create a project with an umbrella somewhere on it.  Of course, it is a Cricut challenge so I used an umbrella from the Tie the Knot Cartridge.  I had an unbelievably hard time with this card for some reason!  I had the perfect idea, with the cutest paper (looked like it was raining hearts), but no matter what I did, I couldn't get it to look right.  Finally had to give up on the idea and do something entirely different than what I had in mind.  I really love the end result now and I would love to keep the card as part of a portfolio, but I've already promised it to my mom so she can send it to her sister-in-law who has just had surgery.

Here are the pictures of the card and the details will be posted below...

Umbrella Card Outside

Umbrella Card, Closeup, Right Side

Umbrella Card, Closeup, Left Side

Umbrella Card, Inside Sentiment

Okay, so, I was really bummed that I had no cutesy stamps to go with my umbrella so I had to come up with something on my own and just print it from my computer.  I came up with... "Under the weather?  I'll bring the umbrella."  I thought that was cute after much deliberation and debate.

Recipe:

Background cardstock & umbrella background:  Stash

Pink patterned paper:  Keeping Memories Alive

Pink hearts paper, umbrella patterned paper, 3 cut out umbrellas - American Crafts

Sentiment - Green copy paper printed on printer from MS Word

Flowers - Prima

Lace - Really Reasonable Ribbon (RRR)

Brads - Basic Grey

Pearls & rhinestone - K& Co.

Ink - Stampin Up & Colorbox

Liquid pearls - Platinum

Stamps - Inkadinkado Circles & Dots

Adhesives - ATG, Super glue, Pop dots, Red tape, Tombow Mono Aqua liquid glue

There ya have it!  Hope it inspires you to join our challenge and put those umbrella cuts to use!

Hugs,

Amy Jo