I thought I already posted this, but apparently it didn't work.  This past spring, my cousin retired from the Army after 25 years of service.  I made this word book for him as a military retirement gift.  As a former veteran, I know how hard this transition can be and I wanted to do something nice to honor his accomplishments.  I had all this military paper leftover from a project that I had done for my brother in law, so it worked out perfectly.  I cut out the words from Lee Greenwood's son "I'm Proud to be an American" and used those for each of the title pages.  I added the embellishments and some squares for him to his pictures.  I love the way it turned out.  When I gave it to my cousin, he said that he loved it and said that I should sell these.  I do sell custom made word books in my etsy shop.  If you'd like one, contact me and I can make a custom order for you.

Hello.  I'm so bad at this blogging thing.  But I will try to get better and post more things.  One of my friends was going to help me make a facebook page and she asked to see my website.  She liked the retirement book that was recently posted and wanted me to make her one for her adopted daughter's graduation.

My friend wasn't exactly sure what she wanted on it. She just knew that she wanted the main color to be purple because that was the colors for UCSF and her daughter's wedding colors.   She had made a montage of all of her adopted daughter's accomplishments and pictures and set it to music.  She sent it to me to give me some ideas of what her adopted daughter liked.  While I watched the video, I was taking notes about what I could possibly use for titles.  One of the songs on the video kept resounding in my ear while I wrote stuff down.  I had an idea of using the song title for the photobook with phrases from the song as the titles in the word book.  I made a sample sketch and presented the idea to my friend and she loved the idea.  I origional wanted to make it white and purple, but it was too much of a contrast.  So I went with a couple of different shades of purple and I couldn't be more pleased with the way it turned out.  I put some graduation stickers on it because it was a graduation gift, and some music notes on it because it was part of a song and then just started using some stickers I had around to embellish it.  I got frustrated cutting out the words for the titles, so I just ended up printing them on white cardstock and it turned out fine.  My friend really liked the end product and I enjoyed making it for her.

Have a great day and I hope to be back here soon.  Take care and remeber to keep it crafty.

Good Morning.  I am going to attempt to post this again.  I tried 4 or 5 times unsuccessfully to get this blog post to stay up.  I hope it works today.

This is a retirement word book that I made for a customer.  Her mom was retiring as a 4th grade teacher.  They found a similar book that I had made on pintrest.com.  The only thing that the customer requested was that the colors be changed to red, black, and white and that it was for a retiring teacher.  So with that much info, this is the design that I came up with for this retirement gift.  There are a total of 8 pages front and back.  There are several spots where they can insert pictures or it can be used as one giant card that everyone can sign.  It is a great conversation piece and a wonderful way to thank an employee that will be deeply missed as they enter into the new phase of their lives.  When I sent this to the customer, she wrote back and said it was beautiful and she couldn't wait until the party to give it to her mom.  Her mom loved it and I think it will have even more meaning once everyone has a chance to sign it. 

Have a great day and I hope to show you some of more newest creations soon.

Hello!!!  I hope you have been able to do some crafts.  I would love to see some of your creations some day.  I'll have to research how to have you share your crafts here.  I know there are much more talented people out there than myself.

Well I'm getting ready for the 2010 Scrapbook Expo in Del Mar.  I'm excited about seeing all the new toys available to scrapbookers.  If you're in San Diego on August 31 and May 1st, you will want to get your tickets soon.  If you are interested in going, here's the link to the website:  http://www.scrapbookexpo.com/.  The last day to pre-register is this Sunday.  I'm thinking about entering one of my word books in the creativity showcase contest.  I'd love to win the bind-it-all.  I would be so much easier to make these books that way, instead of with the Eyelets the way I've been doing it.

Well here's my current project.  I'm working on a graduation gift for one of my clients.  I had just started thinking about graduation gifts and then she wanted to order one.  I liked her idea better than mine, so I went with it.  So here it is.  Her school colors were red and gold, but she like the red on black better.  Their Mascot was Tigger, so that's why he's on there. 

If you'd like to have a custom-made graduation gift, please feel free to contact me.  The different letter styles and color combinations can be seen under the "Word/Name Book" link on the left or through the links at the bottome of this page http://christinascreation.weebly.com/wordname-books.html.
Not sure what I could do for every mascot out there, but I'd be willing to try to come up with a design that might work for you.


I gotta finish cooking dinner.  So happy scrapping to you.  Hope you enjoy the pictures.  Have an awesome week...yeah tomorrow is Friday!!!!

Hello there!!!  I'm so happy to be playing in my scrapbook room again.  It seems like it has been forever.  I made another word book today.  I'm debating whether to give it to my mom or to sell this one at the breast cancer awareness show I'm doing next month.

The word is "Survivor".  I used the Pink Journey Cartridge for the titles, the Cricut design studio software for the Word book, and all the embellishments I had lying around here.   I'm thinking to do a couple more books with the words:  "courage", "strength", "hope", and "together" on it.  I thought about doing the word "Cancer", but these women that go through this are more than their disability. 

I really enjoy making these word books, so I'm going to come up with a new line of books for Mother's Day, Father's day, Graduation, and some other themes. 

Let me know what you think.  Have a great day.

Hello!!!  I am really enjoying my new Cricut Expression.  Some of the cartridges like Wild Card and the Boxes and Tags catridge work a lot better on this machine.  It's also saved me time, because I don't have to cut the papers in half any more.

This week I worked on putting together another name book.  I met a lady at a craft show and she wanted me to make some stuff for her grand daughters.  I just finished the name book for her.  She said that her grand daughter liked butterflies, pink and purple.  So I designed a book that incorporated those ideas into it.  I like the way it turned out.  I met her grand daughter at the craft show and she liked arts and crafts a lot, so I decided to include some butterfly stickers that she could add to her book herself.  I think she is really going to like it.

I need to start getting more Easter stuff together.  I'm going to try to the craft show at the Escondido Humane Society again the first Saturday in April.  Hopefully it doesn't get rained out again.  We've had more rain this spring then we did all winter. 

Here's the pictures.  I got to go get dinner ready.  Have a good week.

Hi!  I know I haven't been writing much.  I've been swamped.  I was a vendor at the Vista Elk Lodge this weekend.  It went really well.  I had a lot of fun, meet some really cool people, and sold alot of stuff.  Actually, this was the very first time that I actually made my booth rental fee, so I was excited. 

This week I really wish I could quit my day job and do crafts full time.  But the reality is that I'd be living off of cat food and in a box if I tried to quit right now.  Some day...that's my ultimate dream at this point.  I guess for now I'll just keep making some projects to post for you and keep dreaming.  I keep telling my husband that he needs to become independently wealthy, so I can quit my job...but he doesn't seem to follow my advice...go figure.

Anyways here's the completed name books and some of the favors that I've been working on.  Enjoy, be inspired, and remeber if I can do this, then so can you.  Enjoy the rest of your week!!!

It seems like it's been forever since I've posted anything.  I've been swamped with work, trying to get stuff ready for a show, and trying to get orders made.  It's a good kind of busy, but I miss being able to do crafts and blog about them. 

So here is what is going on in my world.  This Saturday I'm going to the Vista Elk's Lodge for a Craft show (1947 E. Vista Way, Vista CA).  So I'd love if you came over and stopped by to chat.  It seems like I've done a 100 parent meetings this year at the school.  Last weekend, the Escondido Humane Society show was cancelled for rain again, so I did my cooking for the month.  I'm still trying finish up these name books.  I'm trading the books for a banner that I can use at the craft shows.  I like doing these custom order books.  They're great gifts for baby showers, birthdays, mother's day, graduation, retirement, or any other occassion you can think of.  It's fun to put everything together, and see the smiles it brings.  Everyone seems to like them.  It takes a while to put them together, but they look so good when they are all done.  I have to contact the customer and see how they want the pages inside personalized.  But I thought you might enjoy seeing them.

I've also been making a bunch of mint favors for this craft show.  I just wanted to make something cute for people to give away to friends and family.  I gave a couple of the lollipops to some of my co-workers today, and they said it was too cute to eat.

I have to go start loading up my car.  Here are the pictures of the name books and pictures of the table for my craft display.  I'll post the mint favors another day.   Enjoy the pictures and I hope that you have a wonderful weekend with your friends and family. 

Hello there!!!  Hope life is treating you well.  I'm excited because some people asked for some custom orders and is stimulated my creativity.  In December one of my co-workers had retired and I made her a retirement book.  One of the people that went to the party really liked that book.  So she asked me to make something for her daughter's 30th birthday.

The way this idea was born was basically talking about what her daughter likes.  Mrs. G just started telling me about everything she could think about that her daughter likes last week.  I just started writing everything down.  The stuff was so random:  dragonflies, baseball, new house, family, friends, etc.  Over the weekend, I just made an empty generic word book that that said happy birthday in pink and brown letters.  I figured it was generic enough, that if she didn't like it, I could use it for someone else.  Then I took that part back to her and showed her what I did so far.  She loved it.  Over lunch we went page by page and brainstormed ideas that could go on each page.  After I got off work I started to cut out all the letters and started to put the rest of the stuff on that she wanted.  I couldn't believe it, I put the rest of that book together that night and brought it back to work the next day all finished.  She couldn't believe that I had finished it already.  She loved the way it turned out.  I hope her daughter loves it just as much. 

(Bummer...I forgot to take pictures of the finished project before I gave it to her. You can get the general idea. These are pictures of what I gave her before I put everything on---just imagine it decorated with rhinestones and dragonflies and the last page on the insdie said "You may be 30 now, but You'll always be out little girl") 

I guess I really am leaving a lasting impression through crafts, because she rembered me for making that other book.  Yesterday I got an order for some mints, so I'll share the sample pictures with you the next chance I can sit down and blog with you.

Have a great night and keep it crafty!!!