Merry Christmas

Hi all!!  I just wanted to take a moment to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas.  I am doing my last holiday baking tonight before the big day tomorrow.  The kids are so excited.  Especially my oldest.  She hasn't stopped singing Christmas songs for two days now.

So I also wanted to share some last minute Christmas crafts I completed last night.  The first is some gift card holders I crafted.

I created these using an image off of the Elegant Edges cartridge.  I created the pocket for the gift card by cutting one of the top or bottom covers in half and then only sealing them on the edges.  They were super simple to make.  I even did some stitching around the edge of the inside.

These cards I made last night.  All the images are from the Christmas Solutions cartridge that came with my Gypsy.  I kind of wanted an old-school look for them.  I still haven't made Christmas cards to mail out to family and friends.  I decided to take some of the pressure off myself and instead send out New Years cards.  I will be getting to making them later this week once Christmas is done and cleaned up.

So that is all I have for you today.  Again I hope you have a safe and happy Christmas.  Remember the greatest gift is being able to share the holiday with the one's we love and celebrating the true spirit of the season.

Dear Santa with the Cricut

    Hi all, long time no write!!!  The holidays really do get in the way of this blogging thing.  I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and really are enjoying this Holiday season.  I have been actually crafting, just no time to post.
    So today I have my kids Dear Santa paper to write their letters.  My oldest daughter specifically asked me to make her a pretty paper to write her letter on.  When I asked her why, she said that she thought Santa really liked the paper and he would pay more attention to her list.  So essentially she thinks it gives her a leg up with Santa!!!  Kids can be so funny.

    The Dear Santa cut is from the Ultimate Sampler cartridge.  The Ho Ho Ho and Naughty or Nice cuts are from Create a Critter 2.
    So that is all I have today.  I have been working on some gift card holders and gift tags.  I will post them later this week.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hi all, I hope you all have had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I know I am a day late, but I spent all day cooking and doing dishes and just crashed in the evening.  I hope you all had a wonderful time with your family and friends. 

Guest Post for Exploring Circut - Mini Recipe Book

Good Morning and Happy Monday everyone.  I hope you have had a fabulous weekend.  Today I am so excited to be guest posting over at Exploring Cricut.  They really have a fantastic blog with so many inspirational projects using the Cricut.  I hope you will stop over and check out the fun.

Today I am sharing a mini recipe book I plan to give as a Christmas/Teachers gift to my daughters' preschool teachers.  Every year I make all the teachers a breakfast as the Christmas gifts.  I have been asked several times for some of the recipes so I thought this year I would make them a mini recipe book to go along with the breakfast.  This way I don't fall behind on emailing them out (which is what usually happens).  So here it is:

Book Recipe:

• Outside covers printed from Mr Frosty Imagine Cartridge and cut at 4 1/8" x 5 3/4"
• Inside recipe pages printed from Kate's Kitchen Imagine Cartridge and cut at 4" x 5 1/2"
• Recipe label printed from Kate's Kitchen and cut at 1" x 3 7/8"
• Sentiment tag cut from Craft Room Basics at 1" x 2 1/2"
• Oven Mitts printed from Kate's Kitchen and cut at 2"
• Stamped sentiment from Michaels Recollections Christmas collection
• Stamp Ink is Quick Quotes Chalking Ink in Maraschino Cherry
• Corner chomper to round all the edges
• Inked all edges with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo distress ink
• Used 1/8" eyelets and the Crop-a-dile 
• Red and white bakers twine to bind the mini book
• Ribbon on cover from Celebrate It at Michaels

Well that is it.  I hope you have enjoyed and are not to shocked that I have already thought ahead to Christmas.  I still haven't started our Christmas cards yet, but did you really expect me to get started in July like I said that I would???  Don't forget to stop by the Exploring Cricut blog.  Thanks so much Diane for the opportunity to be a guest blogger today!!

Halloween in our House

Hey all hope you are having a good Monday.  I am having a great one because I just got back from a much needed girl's weekend with one of my best friends.  I only do it once a year and this one was some much needed R&R.  We went to a great resort in VA and played golf and talked and did puzzles into the wee hours of the night.  I was fantastically low key and just what I needed to get ready for the holidays.  So that is why I am posting Halloween a few days late.  This year I made the costumes for the girls and I.  It was an ambitious feat but I got it done and think it turned out great.  Here is a pic of the whole family.

We were the three witches.  That spooky guy is my husband.  The torch he is holding is real and got accolades while we were out trick or treating.
So for the witches costumes I made the t-shirts and the tutu's.  Here is a pic of the shirts.

These shirts were made with bleach.  I cut out the words and image from the Happy Hauntings cartridge.  I cut them on freezer paper and them ironed them onto the shirts.  I then mixed a solution of 70% bleach with 30% water and sprayed the shirts with the bleach.  I let them sit for a couple hours and them rinsed them in the tub with cold water and put them through the wash.  The bleach didn't bleed and has not through two washes!!!  I love how it looks like the witch is flying in front of the moon.

The skirts were made with purple, green, orange and black tulle.  I think I used about 40 yards of tulle for all three skirts.  The girls loved them and they are now in the dress up bin!!!  The hats that the girls are wearing actually came as headbands from Jo-Ann's.  I knew they would be constantly falling off, so I cut the headbands out and hot glued clips to them.  It worked great.  Interesting enough, with all the accessory's and t-shirts I spent about $25 per costume.  I think this is the same or even less than I would have spent on store-bought costumes. 

So that is all I have tonight.  I am off to work on a project for another blog that I love.  It will be up later this week.  Hope you have a great week. 

BOO-Marks for Halloween

Hi all, I hope your week has been going well.  We made it through Sandy without losing any power or damage to our home.  I really think that we picked the perfect house because in the 8 years we have owned this house we have never lost power!!!  Amazing I know.  I have spent the time getting ready for Halloween.  I made our costumes this year, so I was finishing up those.  I will share those tomorrow or later in the week.  Today I am sharing the Boo-marks I made for my daughters treat bags at her school Halloween party.  Get it Boo-marks, bookmarks.  My daughter has started chapter books this year and has been begging me to make her some bookmarks for her books.  I thought that this would be the perfect non-edible treat for the favor bags.  So here they are:

I made three for each child in the class (a total of 42).  Here is how to make these bookmarks:

• Cut a 3" x 6" sheet of cardstock and fold in half to make a 3" x 3" card
• Cut each card in half diagonally - when you cut, you will end up with one section that stays together and the other section ends up being two triangles
• Cut a 3" x 0.5" sheet of cardstock and fold in half width wise to close the end of the card - I used two strips to adhere the single triangles together
• Decorate as desired
• The tags are from Happy Hauntings cut at 2"
• The monster and spider is from Create a Critter 2 cut at 1.5"
• The ghost is from Simply Charmed cut at 1.5"

Here is what the bookmarks look like on a book.  The ghost is my favorite because of the googly eyes.  They sound complicated to make, but once you do one they are quick to put together.  

Here is a picture of them packaged for the favor bags.  I made the toppers using my Cricut Markers and the Happy Hauntings spooky font.  Here is a picture of what my craft space looks like when I am working on a project of this size:

Super messy huh!!!  I will clean it up tomorrow when the girls are at school.  So that is all I have for you tonight.  I hope you have a safe and Happy Halloween.  Thanks for stopping buy.

Cake-Pop Favors

Hi all, Happy Friday.  Hope your week was fun.  Ours was the end of the Birthday madness month around here.  We celebrated our youngest daughter's third Birthday Tuesday.  We had a fun family day at a local fall festival.  Today I have to share with you the cake pop favors I made for the kids birthdays at school.  I think cake pops are the perfect treats for kids at school because they are really only two bites of cake.  So here they are:

The toppers above I made by cutting the base tag from the Birthday Bash cartridge at 2.5 ".  The circle part of the tag is actually made using the Avery round labels and their online design software.  It was a quick and easy way to make a bunch of tags at once using my printer.

These tags are made using the same base tag as above.  I then used my Cricut markers and my Cricut to draw the images and text on the orange circles.  I used the Create-a-Critter cartridge for the pumpkin and the Once Upon a Princess cartridge for the text.  I think these came out super cute.

We that is all I have for you today.  We are off to get pumpkins for carving tonight.  There is supposedly a big storm headed this way for next week so want to get this done today.  Next week I will share the costumes I made for my girls and I.  I think they are coming along great and will be very cute.  Have a great weekend.

Fall in Skyline Drive

Hi all just thought I would drop in to share some great photos I took at Skyline Drive today.  The colors were absolutely phenomenal.  From bright yellows to deep reds and everything in between.  It was inspiring, and I may be incorporating some of these colors in future projects.  So here they are:

Thanks for stopping by.  Hopefully you can find some inspiration in your neck of the woods!!!

Cupcake Party: Part 4 - Cupcake Game

Happy Friday everyone!!!  So excited it is the weekend.  We are going to enjoy some quiet family time, maybe check out the fall foliage on Sky Line Drive.  So today is the last installment of the cupcake decorating party series.  I am going to share with you a giant felt cupcake that I made for the kids to play pin the sprinkles on the cupcake.  It was super easy to make, and incredibly inexpensive.  I am talking, I only spent about $5 to purchase the felt needed for this project. 

So the way I made this was I decided that the whole game should be about 3' tall.  My youngest is only 38" and I wanted her and her friends to be able to reach everything.  I then made myself a small sketch on paper and followed it as a guide when I cut the felt.  I then hand cut all the sprinkles and the cherry out of different colored felt.  We hung it on the wall, put a blind fold on the kids and spun them until they were pretty dizzy.  All the kids had a blast playing the game and it gave some friends time to put out all the decorating supplies for the real cupcakes.  Here is my cutie playing.

So that is it, super easy and super cute.  I may try to make some felt envelopes this weekend for the girls to play mail with.  I have a ton leftover.  I will leave you with some other photos from the party.  I hope you have a great weekend.

Cupcake Party: Part 3 - Table Decor and Favor Boxes

Good Evening everyone, hopefully your day was great.  I personally am looking forward to the weekend.  Well tonight I am back with some more cupcake decorating party details.  I am going to share with you the table decor and favor box decorations that I did. 

These are pic of the tables and the individual place settings that I did for the kids.  I decided that the first activity would be for the kids to decorate their chef hats.  As I mentioned in the first post, I got the aprons and hats as a set on Amazon for about $5 each.  I also scored and 80 count box of Crayola Fabric markers on Amazon for $40.  If you have ever looked at the cost of fabric markers at the crafts stores you will know that this is a steal.  They usually end of being about $5 a marker at the big box craft stores.  All the kids had a blast decorating thier hats, and to see their individual creativity was great.  As you can see in the photo above, I also made place cards for each child.  I used my Cricut Imagine, the Kate's ABCs cartridge and the Cupcake Lite cartridge to make these.  I then used Stickles to decorate the cupcakes printed on the cards.  My Imagine actually worked this time, and both print and cut the place cards. 

Here is the favor boxes.  I purchased pastry boxes designed to hold four cupcakes.  For the tag I again used my Imagine to print and cut the top layer.  I then cut the base layer in pink paper on my Expression.  Then I used hot glue to adhere the blue ribbon bows.  It was simple and I think added a special touch to the plain boxes.  Of course my cute little model makes it look fantastic.  She was so proud of the cupcakes she decorated all by here self. 


 So that is all I have for tonight.  Tomorrow will be my last installment, where I will share with you a Giant Cupcake game that I made for the kiddos.  Hope you have a calming evening. 

Cupcake Party: Part 2 - Banners in Pic Monkey

Hi all, well I am back with Part 2 of my cupcake decorating party installment.  Today I am going to show you the banners I made as the background for the food table at the party.  I am not sure they are called banners or posters, whatever you call them, they came out great and were easy to make.  Here is the pic:

So I used Pic Monkey, the free online photo editing software.  This software is really cool with all the editing it allows you to do for free.  To start the posters I used some free Chevron images I found on Pinterest here. I uploaded the color I wanted to Pic Monkey and then added the labels and text.  Kimbo over at A Girl & a Glue Gun did a fabulous tutorial on Pic Monkey.  So after I had done all my editing I sent the files to my hubby, who is part owner of an Architecture firm, and he printed them on their color plotter.  You could also go to staples or an online printing company.  I made the banners 2' x 3'.  I think they came out pretty cute, and made an impact in the room.  Unfortunately, as you can see from the photo, we were not allowed to remove the original artwork from the walls before decorating.  They were actually screwed into the wall!!!. 

So that is all I have today.  Tomorrow I will share with you some of the table decor and favor box decorations.  Hope you have a fabulous day. 

Cupcake Decorating Birthday Party: Part 1

Good Evening everyone.  I am back as promised with the details from our Girls birthday party that we held this weekend.  It ended up being a great party.  All the planning and effort that went into it really paid off.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, we decided to have a cupcake decorating party.  There ended up being 19 kids between the ages of 3 and 7.  Crazy I know!!!  With that many children I decided to rent our Community Center.  We have almost white carpet through out our entire house, so there was NO way I was going to let 19 kids decorate cupcakes in our house.  Here is a picture of the room after I completed decorating. 

We hung pom-poms from the beams in the room.  I actually looked at purchasing these until I found out they cost $19.99 for only six of them.  I found a great tutorial here on Martha Stewart's website on how to make them.  I ended up making 10 multicolored pom-poms for about $8.00.  I then set up a seat for each child with their personalized aprons.  Here is a pic of the aprons I made for our girls.

 

I actually made one of these for each child, personalized with their name.  I forgot to take a picture of all of them in the rush to get them finished.  I found the aprons along with hats for about $5 each on Amazon.  I used Expressions Vinyl heat transfer vinyl and my Cricut to make these.  Here is another post on how I use this vinyl.  As a side note, I want to say, only because I have used it so much, that I am kind of getting disappointed with this heat transfer vinyl.  It doesn't seem to hold on well after washing.  Not sure if I am doing it wrong, or if that is the way all heat transfer vinyl is.  I may try a couple other brands in my next projects.  It looks really good on the first wearing but after that I have not had much luck.  Let me know if you have any ideas or info on this.  

With that I also had to make a couple bibs for the babies that were coming.  These did come out super cute as were the models wearing them!!!  Here is a photo of my adorable niece wearing one.

So that is all I have tonight.  I decided that I would break up the party details into several posts.  If I had not, this post would be a mile long.   Tomorrow I will be sharing some banners that I designed on Pic Monkey.  With that I will leave you with a photo of my sweet girls blowing out their birthday candles.  Hope you have a wonderful evening. 

Party Success

Hi all, wow I can not believe I have not posted in almost three weeks.  It has birthday craziness around here.  I have been crafting up a storm for the girls cupcake decorating party.  The party was yesterday and it was a big success.  I can't wait to share all the deets with you.  I am in the process of editing some of the photos so it will be sometime this week.  My youngest daughter's actual birthday is next week so I will be doing some more crafting for that, but definitely not as intense as the last week.  I also plan to make our Halloween costumes this year, so I can't wait to share that with you as well.  So with that I will leave you with a photo of my sweet Big Girls on the morning of thier party.  Hope you have a great start to your week, and stay tuned for some details of the big party. 

It's Birthday Time in these Parts

Hey everyone, how's the week going?  Mine got off to a sick start.  Came down with some cold that wiped me out for about 48hrs.  Not fun.  Thank the heavens my Dad was in town this week, he took the kids outside for some much needed play time, and I got to rest a little.  I am feeling much better tonight and hope to be up and at'em tomorrow. 

So October is Birthday month around here.  Both my kiddos have birthdays.  Since they are so close in age and both girls I have a combined party for them in the middle of the month.  Now call me CRAZY but I decided this year that I would let them invite their whole classes both for the party.  So with 37 kids invited to a cupcake decorating party, oh and they are 3 and 5 year olds, it is going to be a whole bunch of messy fun.  Here is the invitation I created:

Card Recipe:

• A2 sized invite
• Once Upon a Princess Font for the text
• Kate's ABCs Font for the Cupcake Party cut-out
• Stickles in bright pink and purple
• Ribbon from Walmart

So this invitation process drove me a little crazy, only because my crafting machines wouldn't work the way I wanted them to.  I was planning on using my Imagine to cut and print the invitations, it ended up only printing.  I was so frustrated that I couldn't get it to cut.  So I decided I would print on the Imagine and then move directly over to my Expression to cut.  It was tedious but it worked and I am happy with the end result.  I also did all the dots by hand with the stickles.  I learned how to clean up dots of stickles in this process that I may make a short video on in the future, when I am not planning a party.  So that is that, hope you have a great week.  

Birthdays Birthdays

Hi everyone.  Wow it has been over a week since I posted.  Too busy crafting and getting used to this new school schedule.  I am not really a morning person and my kids generally slept until 8:30 or 9 during the summer, so getting up at 7 or 7:30 in the morning has been a struggle.  I am getting used to it though!!  I generally stay up until 11 or midnight but that has changed!!!  Need to start using my time after the kids go to bed more wisely since I have to turn in earlier.
So we have had a bunch of kids birthday parties as of late and with that comes crafting more birthday cards.  I have two to show you tonight.

Card Recipe:

• Create a Critter Cupcake - 2 welded together - cut at about 4 inches
• Ribbon from Michaels
• Glitter powder using a Zig 2 way glue pen
• Sentiment from My Pink Stamper

This card was for a little girl turning 1.  The neat thing with this card is that I figured out how to use the glitter powder that came with a pen system, using the Zig 2 way glue pen.  Love that I don't need to special order certain glues for this.

 Card Recipe:

• Castle Card from Princess Party cartridge cut at 5.25"
• Ribbon from Michaels
• Sentiment from My Pink Stamper

This card was for a little girl turning 4.  She had the sweetest ballet birthday that my kids had a blast at.
So that is it.  You can tell that I was in a glitter frame of mind that night.  I hate the mess that I created but do think it was worth it.  I hope you all have a great ending to your week.  I will be around soon to post another project that I have been working on....  more birthdays!!!

Anniversary Card with the Cricut

Happy Friday Everyone.  Hope your back to school weeks have been going swell.  Mine start school next week and I am counting the hours.  I think I am going to schedule a pedicure for my first lonely kid free hours.  So this past Monday was my DH and I's 8th wedding anniversary.  It is really funny to think we have been married 8 years.  They have gone by fast so we must be having fun and doing things right.  We didn't do much that day as I wasn't even sure if he was going to be in town.  He made all the meals and took care of the kids for most of the day which really at this moment in our lives is the best gift ever.  Oh and he did get me some beautiful flowers.  I made him a card of course.  I went kinda cutesy this year. 

Card Recipe:

• 6" square card
• Hearts frame from Elegant Edges
• M from  Gypsy Font
• Groom and Bride from Simply Charmed
• Sentiment from My Pink Stamper

He really did enjoy his card.  So that's all I have for you this week.  I am busy working on the invitations for my girls birthday party.  I will have a ton of craftiness going into this party so stay tuned for some cute birthday goodness.  Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a fantastic weekend.  

Back-to-School Again with the Cricut Markers

Hello, back again with another card post tonight.  As I mentioned in my last post, my girls go back to school in a week and I wanted to make something for them to find in their lunch boxes.  Just want them to know that I am thinking of them while they are away for a couple hours.  This card I made for my oldest and really loved how the Cricut markers looked on this project.

Card Recipe:

• Pink card base is 4" x 4"
• The card frame was done using a black Cricut marker and the Simply Charmed note book paper
• The pencil is from Simply Charmed cut at 2.5"
• Recollections stamps
• Hard to tell but the name is done using purple glitter

I really love how this notebook paper was done using the Cricut markers.  I think this technique is a great addition to my crafting.  I am entering this in the Back to School challenge over at Fantabulous Cricut.   Well that is that.  Thanks for stopping by and again I hope to have a great weekend. 

Back-to-School with Circut Markers

Hi all

Hope everyone is having a great start to their Labor Day weekend.  We went to the pool today, probably the last time of the season due to the weather report this weekend.  It was a bunch of fun and of course I took lots of pictures to capture the last moments of summer.  (I haven't downloaded them yet of course).  So my kiddos go back to school in a week.  I am sometimes counting down the hours and sometimes hope to time goes by a little slower.  My oldest will be going everyday this year.  It is only half day so I am glad that I still get half a day with her.  I am excited to be spending some more one on one time with my little one since she will only be going two days a week.
So with school fast approaching I made my little girls some cards to stick in their lunchboxes on the first day.  Just want to make sure they know that I am thinking if them while they are away from me for a couple hours.  I went very traditional back to school with these cards.  Primary colors and common back to school motifs.  One thing I did do different is use the Cricut Markers for the first time.  I wanted to give them a test run, because I plan to use them on a really big upcoming project.  They worked beautifully as you will see in the pictures. 

Card Recipe:

• Card base is 4" x 4"
• Card frame is 3.5" x 3.5"
• School frame drawn with black Cricut Marker from Stretch Your Imagination 
• School bus from Stretch Your Imagination - Misted with Tattered Angels Mustard Seed
• Doodlebug twine for braid

So I used the markers twice in this card.  The first was on the school frame.  The second was on the bus.  I first had the Cricut draw the bus with the markers and then I reloaded the mat and cut the bus.  I used white paper and then misted it with the mustard seed mist.  I am entering this card in two back to school challenges this week. 

• Exploring Cricut
• Bitten by the Bug 2

Thanks for stopping by today.  I will share the other card in another post tonight.  Hope you have a wonderful weekend.  

Finished Heidi Swapp Live Class

Hey there, hope you are all having a great weekend.  I spent this evening participating in the final installment of the Heidi Swapp Color  Magic Live event.  It was a ton of fun and I learned a bunch.  I wanted to share with you the projects from the last two classes.  The project for Thursday night was a memory file.  Basically it is a condensed scrapbook.  I actually kinda like the ideas behind these because I am finding it harder and harder to find the time to do a yearly family scrapbook.  But with these you can just scrap the events that you want and be completely done with a project.  This is very appealing to me.  So anyhow here is what I created:

I think I am going to add the photos from my weekend with only the hubby (meaning sans kids) last year.  We really had a great weekend together and this album of sorts would suit the pics beautifully.

So the class tonight was about making a single page scrapbook layout.  I deviated from the instructions with my color choices but followed the layout pretty much.  Heidi was doing another black and yellow theme, but there was this beautiful piece of paper that they were covering up that I could just not let happen.  So I changed my color choices to show off the beautiful piece of flowered paper.  Here it is:

So I just need to add some great photos for this one as well.  I am thinking this layout speaks to photos of an adult girls weekend or something like that - no kiddies allowed in this one either!!  HaHa - I really do love my kiddos, but they don't need to be in everything.  Well I hope you have a great Sunday and thanks for stopping by.