Simply Charmed Birthday Card

Hello!
I was cruising Pinterest hoping to find a simple card idea that I could just slap together.  Upon seeing this card I knew I could easily make one for my Soul Sister!

I used Simply Charmed and made a shaped card with the super cute cake!  I can tell I've been having my Explore do all the work on my projects lately because I stamped the sentiment and may have had to practice a bit!  But in the end it all worked out and I really think I should make some more of these.  It was cut at 5.5" and I didn't even need an envelope!  My kind of card, really!

Thank you for visiting today!  

Dreams Really do Come True!

Ok.  I am living proof that if you put goodness out into the world, goodness will come back to you, sometimes bigger than you can ever imagine!  My sweet friend of many years Natalie has been quite possibly my biggest inspiration in my crafting journey for some time now.  Not only is she amazingly talented, but she's super cool to boot!  I dare say I'm her biggest fan.  And that's the truth!  Well, last Friday, I got to meet Natalie for lunch.  It wasn't an ordinary lunch for me because she has the coolest job in the world at the one and only CRICUT!  Yes, my friends.  I was literally in Heaven when I stepped off the elevator and headed to her office.  First thing off the elevator is  her stunning Pantry she did for Cricut.  OMG. It's perfect.  Then, I see her office.  I'm so excited to be here, and one glimpse into it I was pretty sure I died and ended up in crafty Heaven.  Paper, adhesive, shelves full of goodness and then I see the Project Designers.  Right there!  Working, creating masterpieces just with paper!  Be still my heart.  I've only seen their work on Instagram and here they were.  Shanon, Anna Rose, and Dezi.  You seriously cannot believe how sweet these ladies are in person.  You totally will want to follow them on Instagram as well because they are amazing!  We went to lunch and talked Cricut and crafting.  A stay-home-mom's dream, I must say!  Two of my favorite things on a sunny afternoon with the most amazing crafters ever?  Sweet.  We walk back to their office and talk a bit more about crafty things and I start on my way to pick up my Kindergartner.  My phone rings, and it's Natalie saying I need to come back because we didn't get a picture!  Duh!  So I head back and see that amazing pantry again and to my surprise, Mr. Cricut himself was waiting to meet me!  Little ol' me!  And yep.  He is just as cute in person as he is on all the packaging of their amazing products.  I truly died that day.  And I'm a believer in dreams coming true!  My day was absolutely perfect, and I feel so fortunate to have been given the opportunity to meet the incredible team behind the projects we love. Thank you Natalie, Anna Rose, Dezi and Shanon for making this Mom feel like a million bucks.  I am truly lucky and most definitely a FAN FOR LIFE!!

Bestie's Tank Top

Hey Friends!

Hope everyone is doing well!  My sweet Bestie is moving out of state in June and although I'm pretty bummed, I thought we could make a tank top to do the Bikini Body Challenge as accountability partners.  I don't know what I'd do without her, and I was so happy to try the awesome Cricut Iron On Vinyl.  I must say, it was hard to control myself to only add it to our tanks.  I cannot wait to iron more!  As a fun tip, remember to "Mirror" your image!  We learned the hard way that it truly won't work if it's not mirrored.

We used the Cricut Cartridge Chalkboard Fonts and yeah.  Such a cute font! We chose "Beastie Mode" because we are in fact Besties, and when we work out, Beast Mode is certainly on!  It only made sense to add the "i e" to the end of beast.  Oh how I love a play on words!

Thank you for visiting today!  

Mother's Day Card

Hi!  Today I want to show the Mother's Day card I made for my Mother in Law.  She is just the cutest!  I have wanted to try a gatefold card for a while and decided to just design my own in Cricut Design Space and I was off to the races.

 I cut each of the flowers three times and bent their leaves back and fluffed them up a bit.  As I added them to one another I staggered the placement to give even more dimension.

She loved it, and I can't wait to try my hand at other gatefolds!  I hope you all had a great Mother's Day and I hope your Monday is a great start to the week!

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!