Adam's Banner

I am going to make a banner for each of my boys and hang it from their shelf with all of their things (Piggy Banks, statues, name blocks, etc.) and was trying to get the older two's done at the same time since they share a room. This, however, didn't work out. I did complete them both yesterday - Alex's to his specifications - and then Alex saw Adam's and requested his to be made similar to Adam's. When I get Alex's corrected version made, I will post them both so you can see what we did. Aiden's is stumping me, so I haven't started his yet. My dilemma is this: I don't want it too babyish but I am not sure what to put on it and the colors - his animal is the monkey, so I am thinking about decorating with monkeys, but we'll see.
Adam requested animals - and he listed about 30 animals, so I narrowed it down to 5. He had me lay it on the kitchen table so he could examine it, and had fun with the red red blue pattern - gotta love what amuses a 3.5 year old!

Here are some closer pictures.

Materials used: Create a Critter and Art Philosophy cartridges, CCR, E2, and Cuttlebug. Bazzill and scrap paper. Google eyes, craft supply. Twine, Doodlebug. Cuttlebug folders, Seeing Spots, Spots and Dots and Distress Stripes. Stickles, Ranger. Adhesive, pop dots and ATG Gun.

I am entering this in the Banner Challenge on the Circle Blog.

Happy Birthday!

It is my father-in-law's birthday on Monday. It is silly - I live with all boys (the hamster doesn't count) - and I had a hard time coming up with a "male" card. I was sitting on the floor looking at all of my cartridges and thought Robotz! I haven't used it in a while, so I pulled it out and starting flipping through the handbook. Here's what I came up with:

The Robot is on a bobble - I thought my FIL would enjoy the interactiveness.

I am entering this in the Creative Color Challenge at I came, I saw, I created. The colors this week were perfect for my card, and happen to be my favorite colors!

Certainly Celery RGB: 181, 198, 130

Whisper White RGB: 255, 255, 255

Marina Mist RGB: 100, 165, 187

Cardstock is Bazzill and CTMH. Bobble spring is CTMH, although the adhesive on the spring wasn't very sticky, so I taped it on both sides to make sure it stayed. Google eyes, craft supply. Cartridges: Robotz and Greeting Cards Inside and Out. CCR and Imagine.
Thanks for looking!

Teachers Rock Challenge

My oldest son had his preschool class picture taken about a month ago and we got it back last week. I am trying to start on his scrapbook and getting pages done a couple at a time - I wanted to wait until each of the boys was 5 before I started on their respective scrapbooks because I know that if I started right away, I would have millions of pictures of their first 3 months!
Alex loves school and talks about his teachers and friends constantly. I don't have to worry about teacher gifts for another 5 weeks, and I am not good at planning ahead.
This weeks challenge on the Circle Blog was to:

The Challenge: Create a project of your choice using primary colors. Enhance your Cricut cuts using chalk.

Rules and Guidelines: Circle Blog Challenges are open to Cricut Circle Members only. Your project must be newly created for this challenge and include atleast 2 Cricut Image Cuts. You must submit a project to be entered into the Challenge Prize Drawing. One entry per person, please.

Paper: Piggy Tales, Close to My Heart. Buttons, craft supply. Pearls, CTMH. Twine, Doodlebug. Cartridges, Simply Charmed, Simply Sweet and Art Philosophy. CCR and Imagine.

My Craft Room and Banner

My craft room is also our spare bedroom and office. We have a twin bed in there for my sister in law when they come up and when my husband is on call, he goes in there to work. Otherwise, I have kind of overtaken the room, and especially the closet, as my craft room. It drives my husband crazy, but I store things in the boxes that I received my supplies in: the box under the desk is my scraps (I try to trim them up and put them in the box to use later, which doesn't always happen) and the two boxes in the closet are adhesive and stickers (the stickers are separated by season/reason and in separate ziplock bags. I am a total Type-A personality and my cartridges are separated by type and then put in alphabetical order (I was going crazy trying to find the "one" I was looking for, so about 2 weeks ago, they got alphabetized.) The closet looks very messy in the picture but I have seasonal paper on the left, cardstock on the right and miscellaneous themed paper in the middle, kind of in color order. Vinyl is on the top shelf with my Cinch and albums on the bottom. I do have to admit, when I run out of room to work, I bring my stuff down to the kitchen table.

 So as long as I was cleaning up my craft room, I decided to make a banner for some decoration! I am waiting for more of those 3M minihooks to arrive from Joann's so my banner is currently taped to the top of the desk.

I used Cricut Everyday (for the first time!) to create this banner. Paper is Cricut 12x24 cardstock and American Crafts. Twine is Doodlebug, Adhesive ATG Gun and Zig two-way. CCR and E2
Thanks for looking!!

Birthday Banner

I threw this together quickly Friday night for Aiden's birthday party. I didn't have time for embellishments but sometimes simplicity is good. I will be able to save this and use it for other birthday parties.

I used Celebrations and Pooh Font with Cricut paper on the 12x24 mat. Ribbons are American Crafts.
I am entering this in the Cricut Circle Magazine challenge.
Challenge Rules:
Create any sort of banner you would like, just make sure to incorporate at least 4 Cricut Cuts. Please upload a working link or picture of your project to the blog under the Magazine Challenge tab. Since last month was so much fun seeing how many entries we had, we are doing it again. This month you can enter as many times as you want and we will use the number assigned to your project to randomly pick a winner. Entry deadline is May 11th. If you use Cricut Craft Room design tool, save your file so if you win, we can share it with the Circle members! The winner of this challenge will receive $150.00 credit to Cricut.com and your project picture will be featured in the magazine!

Thinking of You Card

My great-aunt, who is 94, has had a couple of nasty falls recently and I have been wanting to send her a card. Her and my great-uncle (my grandmother's brother, who passed away about 3 years ago) were my go-to's when I was in college. They lived in the town where I attended college and I tried to stop at their house once every month or so. They were amazing sources of information, and they had remembered so many little details. My degree is in history, and I could sit there for hours talking with them, and when I was working on my dissertation, my great-uncle accompanied me to the history center a couple times because he was interested in the research I was doing.
I sent her a card about a month and a half ago, and I am hoping to visit her this summer, but in the mean time . . . Sorry the stamp is crooked, DS#3 bumped me as I was stamping. Hopefully my aunt won't mind.

I am entering this in the Color Challenge from I came, I saw, I created.

Materials used: Cardstock, Bazzill. Ribbon, American Crafts. Stamped sentiment, CTMH. Cartridges used Art Philosophy and TBBM2. Personal electronic cutter, E2. Rhinestone flourish, craft supply. 

Party Centerpiece

The monthly challenge on the Cricut Circle Blog is: Center of Attention Challenge!
The Challenge: Create a centerpiece using your Cricut machines.

Rules and Guidelines: Circle Blog Challenges are open to Cricut Circle Members only. Your project must be newly created for this challenge and include atleast 2 Cricut Image Cuts. You must submit a project to be entered into the Challenge Prize Drawing.

So, as I have mentioned lately, it is the baby's 1st birthday today! We are celebrating his birthday next weekend, and the challenge worked out perfectly this month! I used the A on the rosette as all of my boys' names begin with the letter A and I will be able to reuse it. Got to love that!

Cartridges used (you should all be shocked!): Ribbons and Rosettes, Life's a Party, Celebrations, Doodlecharms and Simply Charmed. Paper: K & Co and scraps from my scrap box. I-Rock and hot rocks. Wilton candy sticks, from Joanns. Glass vase, from Joanns. Twine, Doodlebug. Adhesives:Pop-dots, Glue Dots, Terrifically Tacky tape and EK Success Zig 2 way. Cuttlebug and three folders, Swiss dots, Seeing Spots, Happy Birthday. CCR and E2.

I had never tried a rosette before, and didn't realize it would keep popping back up on me. Oh, well - it was fun to make and I used four cartridges that I haven't touched in a while, if ever. I feel like I am always reaching for Create a Critter and Art Philosophy.

Thanks for looking and have a great night!

Look Who's 1

The baby is going to be (gasp!) one tomorrow! His birthday party is next weekend, and I am taking him (in 9 hours) for his professional pictures. I am hoping to get them back before the party next weekend, and display this for the party. The monkey was on his invitation, so it seemed fitting to add him here.

I am entering this in the Letter Envy Magazine Challenge. Cartridges used: Letter Envy, Art Philosophy and Create a Critter. Paper is Teresa Collins, K & Co, and misc scraps from my scrap box. Cuttlebug and  D'vine Swirl and Distress Stripes for the lion's mane and the grass.

Thanks for looking!!

Letter Envy 4

Unless something crazy happens tomorrow and the boys allow me time to craft, in between running my middle son to his ECFE class and trying to work, this is my last submission for the Cricut Circle Magazine Challenge. Once I sat down and started flipping thru the booklet, I realized how much I could do with the Letter Envy cartridge - if only I had time . . .
Here is my submission:

I was having fun with the Best of Pixar cartridge (which I bought, but regrettably, had never used) and I love Dory and Nemo. Both the Nemo and Dory cards are being sent to Arkansas for the Children's Hospital per a request from a fellow Circlet. A stop at the Post Office is also on the agenda
tomorrow, urgh.
The background is from Letter Envy, Dory is cut from Best of Pixar. The bubbles are random circles. The wooden button and two stamps on the button are from Close to My Heart. I also used a white gel pen on the bubbles and pop dots to make Dory and the bubbles stand out a bit.

Thanks for looking!!

Letter Envy #3

This is my 3rd entry for the magazine challenge. All of the cuts are from Letter Envy except the rectangle- the flowers are part of the layers for the #5 and I layered them and used the ball thingy to roll the layers. The rectangle is cut from Art Philosophy. I had this all cut out last night, but nothing assembled, so this afternoon I put it all together. The stamp is also from CTMH - Card Chatter, Sympathy - which says "Just a note to brighten your day . . . and chase the clouds away".
I am also entering this in this week's color challenge at I came I saw I created.

Basic Gray RGB: 118, 122, 121

Melon Mambo RGB: 234, 62, 112

Old Olive RGB: 138, 151, 71

Have a great night!!

Letter Envy 2

This is my second submission for the Letter Envy Challenge:

I am making cards to send to the Arkansas Children's Hospital for a fellow Circlet, and I went pretty simple with due to time contraints, howver, I wanted to make a couple special ones. This is one of them. The blue background cut is from Letter Envy, the remaining cuts are Pixar Classics. Paper is CTMH and  Provocraft. The seaweed is vinyl. Its hard to tell in the picture but Nemo and the bigger two of the smaller fish are pop dotted.

Thanks for stopping!

Letter Envy

The Monthly Challenge on the Cricut Circle blog is to use our new exclusive cartridge, Letter Envy. The challenge is as follows:

We want to encourage every Cricut Circle™member to participate. We will be choosing our winner at random, and you can enteras many times as you want. It might get a little crazy, but we think it will be really funto see how many entries we can get. So run, don’t walk, to your machines and getbusy! You can create any kind of project you would like—just make sure to use yourexclusive Letter Envy cartridge on it.

Challenge Rules:

Create any sort of project you would like, just make sure to incorporate somethingfrom the Letter Envy cartridge and at least two other cuts from any other cartridge. Upload a working link or picture of your project to the blog under theMagazine Challenge tab. Remember, you can enter as many times as you want, and we will use the number assigned to your project to randomly pick a winner. Entry deadline is April 13th. If you use the Cricut Craft Room™ design tool to design yourprojects, save your file. If you win, we can share the file with the other Cricut Circle™members! The winner of this challenge will receive $150.00 credit to Cricut.com and your project picture will be featured in the magazine. Get busy! The 13th will be here before you know it!

Here is my first of two submissions. I am in the process of trying to make a couple more, but today and tomorrow are going to be a little crazy here, so we'll see how I do.

I bought the glass plate at Joanns. The center flourish and the S are from Letter Envy and the side flourishes are from CTMH Art Philosophy. The vinyl is Oh My Crafts! I planned to layer the S, however, I don't have any clear transfer tape, and couldn't place the layers correctly - I also tried with my fingers, and top layer crumpled on itself too bad, so I gave up. 

Elmo Easter

Happy Easter!! 
We were gone most of the weekend at my in-laws, but I gave my sister in law my old Expression when I bought the E2, so I got to craft a little while getting in some quality time with the family. I got all the Easter cards that I wanted to mail made and sent, but, bad mom, didn't get the boys' cards made until this weekend when I needed them for their Easter baskets.
I just received the Elmo and Friends Holiday cartridge on Friday and was super excited to use it. I love Elmo and the rest of the gang! 
I am submitting this for two challenges: the Creative Color Challenge at I came, I saw, I created.

Ruby Red RGB: 206, 88, 88

Baja Breeze RGB: 141, 189, 193

So Saffron RGB: 253, 215, 130

and the Cricut Circle Weekly Challenge: Springtime Challenge!

The Challenge: Create a scrapbook page, card, home decor item, or other project with a Springtime theme. You must also incorporate ric rac and atleast one sticker.

Paper is American Crafts; Easter and egg stickers are Doodlebug. Not sure where I got the ric rac - all of my ribbon is in a tote. I used my Imagine on Saturday morning before we left to print out Elmo and then put it together down there while I was making the other cards.

Thanks for looking - hope you had a great Easter weekend!

Liz

Easter Card

Easter is less than a week away and I still need to make cards for the Bunny to leave in the boys' baskets. I also need to make cards for grandparents and parents, but I am hoping to get that done later this week. Here is one of the cards for one of the boys. I am also entering this in the Creative Color Challenge. This weeks colors are:


Blushing Bride RGB: 243, 182, 177
Perfect Plum RGB: 133, 105, 128
Sahara Sand RGB: 194, 187, 169

I used Create a Critter for all of the cuts and my Imagine to color everything in. I had trouble getting my Imagine to work properly and had to run all of the calibrations before it finally printed and cut correctly. The ribbon across the bottom is from Joann's and the "eggs" are Doodlebug.