School Days

Hi everyone.  So summer is about over and school is beginning in 7 days.  I can't believe my little guy is heading into first grade!  I am sad that summer is over, but it will be nice to be back on a routine again. 

We have a busy week of buying school supplies and uniforms ahead of us.  Monday, we are going to a meet and greet with the new teacher and drop off the school supplies. Max wanted something nice to bring to his new teacher and I wanted something cute to deliver a teacher survey in.  This year I decided I didn't want to have to guess on what the new teacher likes throughout the year so I'm sending this little survey for her to fill out.  There are a lot of different versions out there, but the one I found on Domestically Speaking I think is the best.  I'm going to print it out on some cute paper and insert into a cute card!

Cuts and cartridges:

grass           Ribbons & Rosettes         1/2"

road            My Community                1"

fence           My Community                3/4"

bus              Beep Beep                      1 3/4"

kids             Autumn Celebrations       1 1/4"

school          My Community               2 1/2"

clouds          CCR Basics                    3/4" and 1/2"

                    This & That                    1/2"

I used a paper from the DCWV Grade School mat stack for the inside.  I decided to leave it blank and I'm going to let Max write his own message in there.

I hope you all have a wonderful day!!!

Linking to:

Cardz TV - Back to School

BBTB2 - School Bus

Craftin Desert Divas - Back to School

Fishing up some Christmas Wishes

Hi everyone!  I have another Christmas card to share with you today.  I was sitting here with my husband this morning and said I was working on something with candy canes.  He tossed out the idea of fishing candy canes.  I love that man!  He sure does help me out when I run into a creative block  :-)

I started with a red card base, 4 1/4 x 5 1/2.  I cut a blue and white polka dot paper 1/8" smaller, inked the edges with indian corn blue and ran it through my cuddlebug using the snowflake folder.  The background paper came from My Mind's Eye 6x6 paper pad called Sweater Weather.  All other paper came from scraps. 

 I used quite a few different cartridges for this one.  The clouds are from This & That, sized at 1/2" and inked with indian corn blue ink.  The trees were cut a various sizes from Paper Doll Dress Up.  I colored the trunk with a brown marker and added silver glitter like garland or snow.  The snow was cut from the grass border on Plantin Schoolbook under the RolyPoly feature at 1 1/2".  I cut three of these, inked the top with indian corn blue, alternately layered them and spread some stardust glitz over them for glistening snow. 

The pond was also cut from Plantin Schoolbook, the oval under the Basic feature at 1 1/4".  The deer was cut from Campin Critters at 2 1/2" and I just cut the fish off the line.  The wreath over the antlers came from Christmas Solutions and was cut a 1" and added green glitter glue.  The candy canes were cut at various sizes from Tis the Season.  I cut these out of red and added the white stripes with my gel pen.  I  popped up the deer and a couple of the candy canes with foam tape.

I didn't have a stamp that I liked for a sentiment on this card so I typed it up in a word doc and used a free font called Beyond Wonderland.  I had some scraps from the same Sweater Weather paper pad left from another project, so I trimmed them to 1/4" and added to the top and bottom.

Hope you enjoy!!  And I'm sending a BIG thank you to my husband for the creative idea!!!!  

Linking to:

Bitten by the Bug 2 - Christmas in July

Festive Friday - Candy Canes

Paper Crafting Journey - Punches and/or Die Cuts

Die Cuttin Divas - Anything Goes

Hello - Farm scene card

Good Morning!

I have a cute, all occasion scene card to share with you today.  I love making scene cards!

This is a regular A2 size card an the base is made with indian corn blue cardstock.  I thought it was the perfect blue for a sky!  All of the rest of the papers came from my scrap bin.  The barn and all it's layers were cut at 3.75" from the Country Life cartridge.

The horse was also cut from Country Life at 1.5".  I popped it up with foam tape.

The rooster was cut at 1" and was cut with the From My Kitchen cartridge.

The clouds were cut from the Creative Memories This and That cartridge.  I think these were cut at .75" but I'm not entirely sure.  The hello stamp is from Hero Arts C1488.  I can't find a name and I've had this set for a really long time.

The inside sentiment is from My Creative Time, Just a Little Note to Say.... stamp set.

I think by changing the sentiments this would make a great invitation to a kids party too!  Hope you enjoy and have a wonderful day!!

Linking to 

Exploring Cricut - down on the farm

Die Cuttin Divas - anything goes

Believe in your Dreams....

Good Morning!!!!  Don't think I'll be that chipper tomorrow when I'm back to work and the weekend is over...then again, I just might  LOL  I am just loving the weather lately!  I'm seeing a lot of people complaining on FB about how too cold it is for summer...blah blah blah.  I don't have a/c and I work from home so when it's too hot - its way too hot!!  and fall is my favorite time of the year, so I'll take this weather any time!!

Today I have a card of encouragement to share with you

I used slate cardstock for the base, 4 1/4 x 5 1/2, a dark purple layer, 4 x 5 1/4, the pattern paper 1/8th of an inch smaller.  The pattern paper is My Mind's Eye, Miss Caroline, Fiddlesticks "You & Me" Bloom paper.  I used scraps for the rest of the project.  The decorative mat is cut from Elegant Edges at 4".  I used button 3, Scallop1.  The bottom green layer is cut using the oblong shift and the white frame is cut using the oblong frame feature (no shift).  The ballet slippers are cut using Creative Memories This & That cartridge at 2 1/2".  I used flower shaped rhinestones around the frame and for the bow on the slippers.  I don't have the packaging for this anymore, but I'm pretty sure I picked them up on clearance at Joann's.  I also used stardust glitz on the slippers for a little extra sparkle.

I used a dark purple mat again on the inside with a cream color mat.  The stamp is a studio g wooden stamp from the dollar section at Michaels.  I used markers to ink the stamp so I could use the different colors.  I used the same MME pattern paper as a border using an EK Success border punch.  Again with this, I don't have the packaging and the name isn't on the punch itself.

I think it came out so pretty, sparkly and feminine!  Have a great day!!!

Challenges:

Die Cuttin Divas - twice as nice - two ballet slippers

Jo's Scrap Shack - bling it up

A Halloween treat box

Hey everyone!  So I know a lot of crafters are doing Christmas in July and I LOVE Christmas and I love seeing all the projects early to get ideas.....

But I'm not in the Christmas spirit yet. And for me it makes sense to get a start on Halloween before Christmas because we really do a lot for Halloween in our house.  Then I figure by the time October rolls around I'll be more ready to work on Christmas.  Especially if we have one of those years where we have snow in October.  Once the snow hits, I'm in full Christmas mode!

So, I'll be starting to mix in some Halloween projects here and there with the rest of my projects and today's was inspired by flipping through and playing with the Cricut Artiste cartridge some more. I absolutely love this cartridge!  There are so many great images and I especially love all the 3-D projects it has on it.  The Art Philosophy cartridge is on it's way - and actually should be here today if the Fed Ex estimated tracking is accurate.  These are both exclusive to Close to my Heart and you can get yours by clicking on the link to my CTMH shop.  There's also a BRAND NEW cartridge that will be available Aug 1 called Artbooking an this one looks just as amazing as the other two - but more on that later.

For now, let's get back to my project.  So I flipped through the booklet for the Artiste cartridge and I found a coffin treat box for Halloween - how great is that!!

What's really great about these booklets too, is that they have added the size you should use for best results on these 3-D projects, taking all the guesswork and wasted paper out of it!  The coffin box and lid are found on page 76 under the 3-D object button, sized at 7 1/2 inches.

I used Slate cardstock and after I assembled the box and lid I inked around the edges with Slate ink. The web is from Creative Memories This & That cricut cartridge.  I used the Cricut Craft Room to design this and the web is sized at 2.639 an then I trimmed off the edges a bit.  The spider is from the October 31st seasonal cartridge and it is sized at 1.25 inches.  I also covered the spider with glossy accents and drew in a line with a black gel pen.

Don't forget about our July specials, Work the Workshop for 50% off with no qualifying purchase required and the stamp of the month Sweet Life for only $5.00 with a $50.00 purchase!

I hope you enjoyed today's project!  Have a great day!!!

Happy Father's Day card and gift idea

Hello friends and Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful Dad's out there!  My son and I worked on Father's Day gifts for his Dad today.  I have so much fun crafting with him and I know it won't last forever so I like to get some craft time in with him whenever I can.

Max is on a baseball kick right now since T-Ball just started a couple of weeks ago and him and his Dad get outside to practice whenever they can.  So it was really no surprise when he said he wanted to make a baseball Father's Day card.  Here is what we came up with:

Max picked the colors and the embossing folder.  I think this one is called Tiny Bubbles.  The white mat is cut from Elegant Edges, the bear is the athlete from Teddy Bear Parade.  The bat and ball are from the Creative Memories cartridge This & That and the glove is from Everyday Paper Dolls.  He wanted it to look like the bear was hitting the ball.  I think he did a really great job!

Here is the inside with his cute little message and the keychain we made for his gift taped to it.

So my husband is a truck driver and he always keeps the key for the semi separate from all of his other keys, but he didn't have a keyring for it or anything.  We thought this would be the perfect gift for him.  We used shrinky dink that I picked up at Michaels a while back.  I loved making things with Shrinky Dink when I was a kid and was so excited to see it back in the stores.  And really, it's just as fun now as it was then!  

I traced my son's hand and foot, he used a couple of dad stamps I had on each and then colored them with a Sharpie marker.  I made sure to remember to hole punch the bottoms of each - although I forgot how much they really shrink and the holes were too small for the jump rings I had.  I ended up threading some jewelry rope through it and knotting them onto the jump ring.  

And then of course we had to make a sweet treat for him!

These are seriously the best brownies in the world if you are a chocolate peanut butter fanatic like we are!

We started with a box of Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownies and baked according to package.  Then we made the peanut butter layer with 1 stick of butter, 1 cup of creamy peanut butter and 2 cups of powdered sugar.  Mix together and spread over the cooled  brownies.  Then we took a can of chocolate frosting, put about a half a cup into a bowl and melted it in the microwave to pour over the peanut butter layer.  Add some chopped up Reeses peanut butter cups and you are done.  So incredibly rich, so incredibly good!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a Happy Father's Day!

Kindergarten Graduation and Teacher Gifts

Hi Everyone!  Today is my son's last day of school and we had the classroom graduation yesterday.  So much fun!  I can't believe my baby is getting ready to go into First Grade already!

I have projects I made for the graduation and end of the year teacher gifts to share today.

First up is the classroom door:

Stepping into First Grade with Pete the Cat.  I used Cricut Cuttin' Up for the font.

Pete the Cat was a little more difficult since, of course, there's not a cartridge with Pete the Cat.  :)

I started with the cat image from Create a Critter.  The ovals for the eyes were cut using Creative Memories This & That cartridge.  The circles of the eyes were cut using Cricut Craft Room Basics.  The triangle for the nose came from George and Basic Shapes cartridge.  The shirt came from Everyday Paper Dolls and the shoes came from My Community cartridge.

I cut one shoe for each of the kids so they all had their names on the door.  The shoe from My community only has two layers, the red and white layers and they were, in my opinion, a little flimsy and I didn't like the open holes for the laces.  So to fix that, in the cricut craft room I used hide features and hid all the holes and lines that cut on the base (red) layer and cut that out in black to go behind.

This was our photo wall where the kids could get their pictures taken in groups or with their parents or teacher.  There were balloons added later but I forgot to get another picture.  I used Cuttin' Up cartridge for the font on this also.

And here is my little graduate!  He's wearing his graduation cap still that I made for all the kids.  :)

These were all hand cut.  I used 9x9 squares of black poster board for the tops and a strip of poster board 5" wide by 20" long for the bottom and secured it all together with hot glue.  You can't see it in the picture, but we poked holes in the tops of all the hats and used yellow yarn to create a tassle.

My little guy wanted to give little gifts to all of his friends and since every one of the kids in the class is now reading I thought bookmarks would be great for all their summer reading adventures!

I used Paper Doll Dress Up to cut the jumping frogs and printed 'Jump into a Book' on white cardstock.  My son signed his name to the backs of all of them for his friends.

Now for the teacher gifts.  Mrs. M is moving to a third grade classroom to teach next year and is using a Hollywood theme.  Here's what I came up with for her:

First up is a couple of bathroom passes that look like a movie award.  I used the cricut digital cartridge called Movie Night and made two of these.

The clapboard is also cut from Movie Night and I used chalkboard paper from DCWV so she can change the message as the year goes on.

These are all various cuts from Movie Night again, to be added to the behavior chart for the classroom.

This was made for one of the other mom's that asked if I would make something for her to give to Mrs. M from her daughter.

This started out as a pizza pan from the Dollar store.  I painted it black and added chalkboard paper to the center.  This way it can be used as a message board with chalk, or since it's a metal pan can be used as a magnet board to hold things.  I used the various cuts from the Movie Night digital cartridge and secured them with hot glue around the sides.  I attempted to punch a hole through the top, but my Crop a Dile wouldn't fit over the lip of the pan and so I added a large rhinestone to the front and hot glued a loop of black satin ribbon to the back so it can hang.

And lastly, I wanted a general gift that she can use in any classroom.

I had ordered these photo cubes from Oriental Trading a while ago during one of their free shipping promos. I used acrylic paint to color it yellow, then used Grade School mat stack for the pattern paper, matted on red cardstock from Core'dinations.  I used some glitter glue to add # 1 to the top.

I had so much fun doing projects throughout the year for the kids and Mrs. M is an amazing teacher.  I couldn't have asked for a better teacher for my son this year!!  My little guy and I are both hoping that he will have her as a teacher again some day!!  Hope you enjoy!  Have a wonderful day!!