Christmas Tags

Hello Friends!

Happy Holidays to you and yours.  I wanted to show you the tags I made for my four dearest friends. I used Cricut's new cartridge, Bits and Pieces and these cuties when together in no time!

Thank you so much for visiting today!  

MIL's Birthday Card... in a box!

Hi Friends!

I wanted to write a letter to my favorite machine ever, the Cricut Explore for helping me in making my darling Mother-in-law a Card in a Box!

Dear Cricut:

I wanted to sincerely thank you from the absolute bottom of my heart for making a machine that I can start with a simple 9"x5" rectangle and turn into a "Party in a Box" for my sweet Mother-in-Law, Jill.  She started me on my crafting journey in 1996 with Rubber Stamping.  I fell in love with crafting way back then and I just couldn't get enough.  In 2005, I became a Mom for the first time and crafting was my "me time".  In 2007, my handsome hubby gave me my very first Cricut Expression and let's just say I used that thing to death!  Literally, it died.  :)  In 2013, my MIL and FIL gave me a Cricut Expression 2, and that was my favorite machine of all time, and it opened so many crafting doors for me that I couldn't have imagined without it.  

Enter, the Explore.  Can we say "OH MY HEAVENS"??  I HAD to have one.  As soon as I heard about them.  It was almost too good to be true...  March 29th, 2014, my husband took me to Michael's to check out the Explore.  He bought me their last one and I've been hooked ever since.  It's more than incredible, it's out of this world with what it can do.  I thought I would love it solely for the scoring it could do for me, but NO!  It literally has taken me to great heights with my crafting and I cannot believe I can do what I did for my MIL.  

I began with a 9"x5" rectangle, and added score lines, cut lines, smaller rectangles for the panels,the "Happy Birthday" banner was written with the Explore and cut out and all the cute birthday cuts from Birthday Bash and began to glue.  My Explore made every cut and line and piece of this adorable card, and I was SO excited to give it to her.  SHE LOVED IT and my engineer Father-in-Law even called it a masterpiece!  My heart was bursting and I couldn't believe I made this.  Without my Explore, I couldn't have pulled it off, and I sincerely thank you for your machine.  It has made me a total rock star to my family and I think it's safe to say that I am truly a "FAN FOR LIFE!"  

Here's a close up of the sentiment flag.  I love having the Explore write my sentiments.  It's SO easy, and cute to boot!  

Thank you, Cricut.  You have made this once shy, scared to try anything, introverted girl into a Confident Crafter, and that's what I need in my life!  

Sincerely, 

CraftsManda 

Lego Friends Birthday Party!

Hello Friends!

Well, my sweet daughter is on her last year for single digits.  She turned 9 on Saturday and requested a Lego Friends theme.  I knew when we began to look at Amazon, Zurchers, Party City, Target and anywhere else we could think of, we'd have to get very clever and come up with some decorations.  No problem, thanks to my Cricut Explore!  Man, that machine made me a total rockstar and my sweet Shelby was SO excited with her party.  For starters, her cute daddy wrapped her gifts to look like Legos.  Holy cute, I must say!

She ordered a strawberry cake with vanilla frosting.  So, once again her awesome daddy made her a cake, also resembling a Lego: 

Next, is where I was able to help out.  I made the confetti to match all the colors of the presents and her banner that I was so delighted with.  Here's a close up of one of the panels: 

I found this Lego Font and had added it to my computer so I could use it in Design Space.  Well, this font in particular has characters in some of the letters, and Design Space only added them as X's.  I was panicking a little but I decided to add her name in Photoshop and make it a Jpeg so I could use it in Design Space.  It looked SO cute and I could get to work.  I made 9 panels on her banner, each panel had 9 circles with her cute name on them.  I double stick taped them to give them a little dimension and asked my 5 year old if it looked like a Lego.  She said exuberantly, YES!  I was so excited.  The first panel and last panel needed to look like a Lego scene.  I scoured my cartridges and found the perfect cuts to weld and add to the scene.  

The branches were from Cindy Loo and the grass was from Walk in My Garden as well as the butterflies.  It was SO fun to make this look as Lego-y as possible and I have to say it was perfect.  She now has it hanging in her room and I love that she wanted to keep it.  

Here's the whole thing that we hung in our front window.  It was a hit!  And I love that font written with my Explore so much.  The word is "AWESOME" on her banner.... Thanks to the Lego movie, I could include that as the birthday theme.  It was such fun and I am so happy we could pull off this not-so-easy theme.  

Thank you so much for visiting today.  I hope your Thanksgiving is the best.  I'm thankful for each of you!

Gift Card Holder

Hello Friends!

I wanted to show you a gift card holder I made to give to my daughter's substitute teacher.  She is having surgery next week and won't be subbing anymore.  My cute Shelby is so sad to see her go so I thought we could do something that may help her after surgery.  She decided on a gift card to Kneaders and I thought that would be perfect!

I decided to try something new with my Cricut Explore and have it emboss my words "Thinking of You" and then I'd scratch off the color and see what happened.  WOW!  Can we say "Love!!!".  I was so excited at how quickly this worked and it has that shabby distressed look that I just go crazy for. I just love when things work out exactly how I think they should!

I've only tried that technique just once, on a paper with a white core, but I will be trying solid colors soon!  I mean, why not!?  It worked so well, and I am even more in love with my Explore than before.  HOORAY!

Thank you for visiting today!

A Wood Turkey? YES, PLEASE!

Hello!

Today I have a project I actually completed in November and have been loving it as a Thanksgiving accent to my house.  Hooray for the The Wood Connection and their adorable wood crafts.  Oh how I love that store!

I of course had to add feathers cut with my Cricut Explore and some 12x12 paper.  

Thank you so much for visiting today!  I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I'm so thankful for you!

Bestie's Birthday Card

Hi again!

Today I have a card that I made for my Bestie.  Her birthday is a big deal!  I had to make sure her card was as sweet as she is.  I think this was the ticket!  

Thank you for visiting today!  Hope you've had a great weekend!

Base Camp Wood Monogram

Hello sweet friends!

I wanted to show you one of my favorite projects I've done so far.  I actually entered it into the Cricut I Made It Contest.  YAY!  I used Base Camp to make a template for my husband to cut some wood for me.  He cut the shadow and made the stand, and then I painted and cut another "N" not the shadow.  It wasn't the easiest thing to put together but I'm SO happy with how it turned out.  My cute friend loved it as well.  

Thank you for visiting today!  I appreciate you so much.