Off we go...

We are headed up to our cabin for a week. If I get time I will post pictures while I am up there, but don't expect any projects from me until I get home. (I have a DARLING OCD box just about finished).

Take care and have a great 4th of July!

Happy Anniversary!!!

Tomorrow is my 10 year Wedding Anniversary. So this is the card for my sweet hubby. I hope he likes it. I used my Cricut to cut the letters and used the negative space. I placed that on top of cardstock printed from my PC. I also did the little tags with my computer. Everything is distressed with ink and sanding. I stitched a little bit and also wove some ribbon through. The paper is from Heidi Grace. It is a little more feminine that what I really hoped, but I think he loves me enough he wont mind. :D

Woooo! Free Stuff!!

Go check out http://blog.stampingdiva.com/ she is giving away some FUN Blog Dessert!

The Ultimate Tool....

Ok, I have a Cricut. I love my Cricut, and I mean LOVE my Cricut. I received it for Mother's Day in 2006 and have used it tons! Well this year for Mother's Day I got the new Cricut Expression. HOLY FRIJOLES! I LOVE this machine! I didn't think that Provo Craft could do anything beyond connecting the USB port to make me love this little cutter any more, but let me tell you that the Expression is AMAZING. There are so many new features that improve upon the original Cricut, like the ability to center a cut (So I can use it to crop shapes into photos), the ability to cut chipboard (YAY YAY YAY), not to mention the great sizes too! I could go on and on, but I won't. Let me just say that if you are considering this machine, go out and get it! You will love it.

That being said, let me tell you that I am also keeping my little Cricut too. I can take it places and now I can be cutting on two machines at once!

I know, there are tons of people who prefer the computer connected cutters, and I do own one. And, I do use it. But it is much more time consuming and requires ALOT of 'tweaking' to get what I want from it. I love the Cricut because it is so simple and quick to get what I want from it.

Long live the Cricut!

ACK

My sewing machine is broken. My DH says he can fix it when he gets home from work. I really hope he can, I feel like I can't make anything without it anymore!

YIKES!

Happy Father's Day!

Well, we are off to our cabin for a few days! I hope everyone has a wonderful Father's Day! I will post pictures if I can!

Maze Book-a-Rama!

I was asked to teach a class on Maze Books for a Father's Day activity for my Church. So, I decided I had better learn how to make them. LOL Fortunately for me it's not difficult at all! This is the first Maze Book I made, it's for my Dad. My father came to the US in 1951 and this is the history his father, my grandfather, wrote about it. For the cover, I used my computer, but I scanned in my Grandfather's signature so I could have it under the title. Then I placed it with a pewter bookplate. I really like the look of this.

The inside has a photo I took of both of my Grandparents when I went to England with them in 1987.
Then the rest is the history my Grandfather wrote. I did distress all the white paper I used to print this out on. I really like the way it looks.

The paper on the outside is from Basic Grey, and then cardstock for the pages and the ribbon both are Martha Stewart. (I found a use for that obscenely large paper she his selling.) The book is 5x5".

(I made these a bit ago, but they have been at the church until this last sunday when I brought them home.)

This last one is a standard Maze book made with 12x12 paper. While they are cute, I hadn't made one until now because I wasn't thrilled with the 3x3 finished page size. Maybe I will change my mind when I get it done.

Wish me luck on my class!

Happy Birthday to my Father in Law

This is the birthday card I made for my Father in Law. My hubby told me that for him, "Simple is better". So I used some patterned paper from DCVW, cut a circle and used some ribbon. The sentiments were all home made rub ons.

Exploding Box-a-thon

This Exploding Box is for my Son's first grade teacher. She is about to become a grandmother for the first time.

I thought it would be fun to make her a box to fill with pictures of her new granddaughter.

The little outfit is from my Cricut and was layered many times to give it some thickness and then inked up a bit with 'Vintage Photo Ink'. I added some stickles to the center of the flower on the little outfit too. It looked much cuter in person.

At 'Mom and Me Scrapbooking' I found this darling little baby rattle charm so I put that on the front of the box tied into the ribbon.

She really liked her box and I hope she has fun filling it with pictures of her granddaughter!

More Exploding Box-a-thon

This one is for my sister-in-law, Julie. The paper is from My Minds Eye (the big pack from Costco) and the ribbon is from the evil Martha Stewart line at Michaels. (I do like some of her ribbon, not so much the other stuff though.)

The button on the top is wood, but I can't remember where I found them. The 'M' was cut with my cricut and layered to make it thick like chipboard. (My pre-expression days, but that's another post to come)

The Flowers are from Prima and the brads are from Making Memories.

I cut the little tag with my sizzix and everything is distressed with 'Vintage Photo Ink'.

Why is May so INSANE?!

Seriously, May has been more crazy than December, and somehow that just doesn't seem right. I don't know what it is about May, but I have decided that May must be short for MAYHEM!

The good news,

We booked a family vacation to take the kids to Disneyworld in honor of our 10th wedding anniversay. Our anniversary is in june, but we are going to take them in December. We are not going to tell the kids. They are just going to come home from school and we are going to get on a plane. It will be the best surprise for them! I can't wait!

I received my Cricut Expression last wednesday. (Things must be crazy for me to not have posted pictures.) I will get pics posted when I get home. I can't wait to spend some quality time with my new toy!

Finally, school is out and I am ready for summer break. As I type this I am sitting in my room at our family cabin waiting for the kids to wake up so we can go boating. It is going to be a beautiful day. Yesterday we put the boat in the water for the first time this season, and went out and had lunch on the boat. My oldest son, 7, decided he really wanted to swim, so we put him in his wet suit and he climbed into the water... the water which was 58 degrees by the way. But he loved it and had tons of fun and I took lots of pictures, because that's what I do! I made a delicious and beatiful dinner for everyone and then we went out for ice cream. It was a GREAT day!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

The Winning Project

Here is the project that won the blog candy! It is a great layout by Amie. Go look at her blog, not only is she a great scrapbooker but she is also a very talented musician and singer!

Enjoy!