A little bit of fun for B...

Since I had this cart out(Country Life) and felt bad for B about her cake I made these two fun horses for her to play with. I layered the top and bottom with two papers with different texture and added some glitter for accent. She loves playing with them still!

Happy Birthday to my B!

I can't believe my littlest one turned three recently. Since she is currently obsessed with everything pink, except for an imaginary black horse she named Flicka, so I decided to make her some pink things for her birthday!! I got decent results with Marshmallow fondant, chocolate Ganache, and the cricut cake for a double cupcake mini cake...but not so much luck for her big cake. Did you realize that black gumpaste is nearly unobtainable? Well at least for me it is! I spent way too much time on it and ended up with a good pink base for the cake (finally got MMF down) but weird colored shimmery horses and "Happy Birthday". I won't describe the fiasco with the spray on color and hours of kneading gel coloring into gumpaste. LOL
She loved it and didn't mind it looking off luckily, and with practice maybe her sweet 16 cake will look good. LOL

For her mini cake I used the Cricut Cake with the brown frosting sheet and Crisco rubbed on top to darken it to nearly balck. The B is from Country Life and the horse is from Animal Kingdom cartridges.

Her banner and card are made with the new Cricut cartridge "Country Life" Using the banner feature. It was so easy it was done ahead of time, rare event for me! :) The front pieces are cut to fit the background layer at the same size and after taping the back with packing tape I sprinkled black glitter over the exposed sticky portion. I was fast and turned out so pretty! In the interest of time, I just used brads to fasten them together...The card has the cut out form the banner which I ran through my Xyron and glittered again! Easy!

Shrinky Dinks!

Unbelievably, I haven't posted, much less created anything all summer long! I have been fed up with my craft room and running out of space so a big reorganization was needed. But with that motivation I got my act in gear and pulled everything out, painted and designed a whole new space which I will show off once it is completed. Even though I am not finished, in the spirit of cleaning house, I'm posting the few things created in August and September...Here are some Shrinky Dinks charms I made in August for a swap, a fun card cut with SCAL from SVGcuts.com never made it to the photo shoot. Oops!

Before

After

As you can see they shrink quite a bit as well as well as intensify in color. These were cut from clear shrink film using my expression, deep blade, almost max pressure and multicut 2, but mostly since my E is on her last legs! I believe this owl is done with the Give a Hoot lite cart form walmart and colored with my Copic markers although any solvent ones like sharpie should do the trick.

June!

Wow, so much time has passed so quickly and I haven't even posted any of my Projects for the past two months. Hopefully you have all been too busy to check on my blog too! So, here are some projects I've managed to get done and get pictures of...

• A mini purse from Cricut  Forever Young. I turned it about a quarter turn in DS and got it a bit larger on a 12by paper. Threw on some leftover tags laying around from the teachers gifts, and Viola! Cute for a 10minute project. One discovery here was that the sides of the purses do not go all the way up and little things are prone to fall out! The paper is a DCWV paper stack, Nanas Garden, I believe, and the ribbon is stash with some CTMH twine to tie the tag to the bow. I did not get a picture of the cute pillow box I tucked inside. It was from the Stampin Up Sizzix Die, and fit some rolled up money perfectly. All tied with ribbon of course. :)
• Some quickie end of the year gifts for all the girls teachers. I used the Sizzix Bigz Die, matchbox, from Stampin up and just love it!! I could put two Giarhdeli chocolates (from the big bag) in each. I also found a trick online that gets the most from your paper. Use one 12X12 and cut at 6.5 down to 5.5in  then turn a quarter turn and repeat all the way around. You will get 4 6.5X5.5 pieces and a small square from the middle. I mixed and matched a few papers from a DCWV stack. Used the mini tag set and punch from Stampin Up, ribbon from a stash and some CTMH twine. Another helpful hint...I roll the twine between my fingers opposite the direction it is wound to separate it into individual strands. It goes a long way and looks more in scale with the tiny tags.

• And this is where I realize I didn't get pics of my girls Birthday cards! Well I will get them. I didn't get any pictures from my girls cakes either as they were finished last minute as usual and they were nothing worth showing. LOL Hopefully I can play with my Cricut cake some more really soon and show something fabulous.
•  OK one last thing....some yummy pancakes. The girls actually eat a mix of Hodgsen Mills Buckwheat pancakes and Bisquick. I add a bit of special pure vanilla extract and top with some strawberries crushed and heated with real maple syrup. Not too bad for you? :) We are so happy to be eating a great variety of fresh fruits and veggies from a local farm that participates in the CSA farm share program. We purchased a half share which means we pick up our share of the farms produce every two weeks. We've been happy to get enough to eat a enough to freeze for later too. *I promise to work on my photography skills too. :)

My Chocolate

This is my little thief  B! She discovered my stash of scrapping chocolate last year and instead of being mad I took pictures! She happened to be wearing the best shirt...It says that everything is "mine" according to the toddler rules of property..so true!

One of the workshops for CTMH is for the new papers Cherry-O...I thought of these photos when I saw this layout and just followed the directions then popped in the photos. Of course I embellished a little differently, hey I am creative. Plus I had to cover a mistake, (Um, I mean I had a creative opportunity) when the edge of my block made a line of brown ink under the word chocolate. So I added more lines! Overall I am enjoying the CTMH scrapbooking workshops....

Miracles

This is a very appropriately named scrapbooking kit from Close to My Heart. It's their freebie for national scrapbooking month and I loved using it. It has a neutral palette for the background papers and you use ink to dye some of the elements for your accents. Sooo easy to work with. The second picture shows the flaps up...way cool to add so many pics to a LO!

Teacher appreciation...100 yards of ribbon! Plus...

80 candy/gift card holders.....240 cards......80 chipboard/wire-bound post-it note holders....nuf said!

WooHoo! I finally found a great option for my ribbon storage. They say third times the charm and it certainly holds true here...So here's the history. When my littlest was very little the ribbon rounds were such great entertainment. But as she grew up, she was able to do more damage, and I had added to the collection. I really needed something to get them stored out of the way, and yet easy to see and easy (for me) to get to. I liked the idea of putting them in drawers rather than hanging them, so the CropperHopper embellishment storage boxes seemed like a great solution. I had drooled over others blog posts of neatly organized ribbon and decided to order what I thought I needed. Well, i ended up with a bunch of the small and nearly useless boxes and none of the most useful size. Apparently they don't make them any more. Strike one. So, onto the ribbon storage from Bestcraft. The ribbon spooler and small round cases seemed nice and easy to store even if they offered less flexibility and were more expensive. Well after they arrived I excitedly started to roll ribbon....strike two. With only a very few exceptions the ribbon I had wouldn't fit!! Ugh! So while I was shopping for some ribbon for my teacher appreciation projects (we use a lot) I stumbled o another product at the wholesale site. It seems that their clear favor boxes are just the ticket!!! They come flattened out and with a bow on top that is easily removable but the boxes are cheap, about 34 cents a piece, and they are just about the right size for every roll! So exciting. I happily rolled up a few of the most unraveled ribbon spools and put them in the few trial boxes I ordered...it works! They are 2X2X1 and fit inside the sterlite 12X12 drawers so nicely! As you can see I left some spools that already fit and some adhesive ribbon in boxes in their original containers and I put some ribbon together with a chipboard spacer. I love this new organization and even these few in the drawers have freed up one of my big baskets! :)

I forgot Some-bunnies

My oldest was so proudofthese bunnies that she set up a special photo shootfor them and I fogot to post it to my blog. So, for her, here are the stars of the day! :) And here's a look at the fun!

How Cute is this?!

Meet Cocoa, our newest little girl! She is a vey sweet tempered , 6 month old hedgehog. After a year of watching hedgehog videos and then researching for a few months, we finally decided to jump into the world of exotic pets. Well unless you consider the girls wolly worm pets exotic. :) There willbe more photos of her tom come and lots of scrappy oppurtunities. K already made her first two page lo of her first day with us!

Cricut Easter Eggs

I love all the things I can do with my Cricut. I had to try vinyl on our eggs this year and although we had a few learning experiences they were fun and came out great! The letters were great for mnograms, the half flower from Graphically Speaking (overlapping the petals worked best) was nice as well as simple circles...longer strips like the ric rac from the Easter Cartridge weren't so good but next year we'll make them thinner and try again! I loved the littel bunnies for the eggs but will have to cut them smaller next year and try more with some double dipped eggs. Coloring eggs with a todler doesn't leave much time for experimentation. :) Mostly the girls had a great time and so did I!

Cart Storage Solution

I think I finally hit on the perfect storage system for my Cricut cartridges! This Art Bin set of storage drawers are perfect for me. I cut some cereal boxes to make dividers so that 16 carts will fit easily without sliding around and yet they are easy to to take in and out. Now I have really fast, easy access to my carts. For a Design Studio project that uses four or five on a single project I can easily pull a bunch out and better yet, put them back! And I have room to grow! :) It's really easy to rearrange them when I get a new one....all my books and overlays are already in a photo storage box so I really only needed this. Now if I could only figure out my ribbon storage problem!

Her first layout!

I am so excited to say that my 6 yo daughter might have been bitten by the scrappy bug! My oldest daughter is probably more a crafter and card maker, who draws beautifully. So, I am excited to report this happy accident!

We started with an idea for the 100th day of school and it just so happens we ended up using my scrappy tools to create this....When I stepped back and realized that we used photo safe materials, I decided we could use a picture of her posing with her creation to make a page! She was so excited and had lot's of fun since I let her do the cutting, tearing and punching (except for the arms and scarf) . Now she wants to do more and wants to have a "mommy day" of scrapbooking!

Happy Valentines Day!

One of my goals for this year is to make more items for my girls. Usually I have been caught up with teachers gifts and all kinds of other projects but this year I wanted my girls to come first. No home made Valentines for my children's classmates, handmade special treats for them. I made the mailboxes and treat boxes from the Cricut Lovestruck 2010 seasonal cartridge. My littlest is all about pink but I couldn't help using kraft cardstock for the mailboxes and stampinup's real red ink and last years stamp set, Love You Much, that coordinates with a set of heart punches and their scallop ....Love that! I wrote a special note for each girl with what I love about them in their little mailboxes and I hope they feel loved and special since they are to me! My wish for everyone today is that somehow they feel loved and special. Happy Valentines Day!

The gauntlet is thrown!

Lovestruck 2010, Desi
The challenge is officially on! A friend was chatting recently and commented on how we all have some very unused carts for our Cricuts. One ting led to another and now we officially have a challenge to use all our cricut carts. One a week from our list that hasn't been used over the year(if ever). And so it begins. :) Now I know I will be posting at least once a week. For this weeks challenge I sorta cheated. I used my new seasonal cartridge for Valentines day decorations. Hopefully I can post a list and try to be more diligent with next weeks efforts! This is going to be fun!

Back-up!

Happy New year everyone! Yes, it's a more than little late, but I haven't been on to my blog for quite some time because of a massive computer failure. Thankfully all my pictures are on an external hard drive. Phew! Please everyone, have at least one reliable back-up for your most important things!

But onto much happier things. If you haven't already checked it out, head over to Stampin up's site for their super sale! I picked out more than a few things to start gearing up for teachers appreciation committee projects. I like to bring in samples and I was very excited to try my new toys from the sale and from Christmas! Very handily I also needed a few thank you gifts...So far I have made the bucket from the stampin up/Sizzix Bigz XL die as well as a few other "containers" These dies are so simple to use, I don't even think my Cricut could do better. I know shocking! LOL.

I also made a cute clear box with another Sizzix die in appreciation for a neighbor shoveling my whole driveway. The stamped design is part of a new clear stamp set from Stampin up(Vintage labels), and works perfectly with their scallop punch. I stamped the sentiment inside separately and positioning was a snap since you can use the rubber stamp with your acrylic blocks! The larger scallop is the co-coordinating Real Red paper. Real Nice! It worked even more easily with cardstock which I then embossed with my A2 embossing folder. I have more detailed pictures of that one somewhere if anyone is interested in a "tutorial" :)

For my neighbor who watches my littlest during Daisy meetings, I made a little mini (4X4) notepad using some leftover chipboard and paper with my BIA. It was easy to make a few for samples and it would fit a small post-it notepad as well...Stay tuned for more TAP sample projects! :)

Happy Birthday to someone special!

For a special friend I attempted my first Stair step card! I really hope she liked it..it was a super special birthday, her 80th and I am lucky to have met her.Verna is a joy to know with her wit and wisdom. She is so funny and charming and knows how to say a lot in just a few words...hmmmm something I am trying to learn...LOL

So, this was last years mantle, and I am not sure what to do for this year! It would either be a Nativity or maybe just this one again since I have a cut file all ready to go...any votes? :) I do have the new Winter Woodland cart for some 3-D houses and of course I spruced things up a bit on the mantle but we'll see where creativity and time take me this year! I loved that the moon was glow in the dark vinyl!

All I want for christmas...

Well almost...LOL One of the special things I would love for christmas is the new Gypsy by Provocraft/Cricut! They are giving one away at the Gypsy challenge blog...check them out here at The Gypsy Spot. Good luck to you too!

Christmas has arrived!

I had great fun today finishing up some cards for a friend overseas.....Afghanistan to be exact! Catie, my online scrapping friend, and I used Skype to have a virtual crop and it was a blast. It was so nice that we could share ideas and she was able to help suggest some things for me to try...so how did I do? :) I was able to do 22 cards this afternoon. Probably a record for me. So now I can concentrate on my own christmas cards. :)