My first explosion box :)

Sorry for all the pics, this one is hard to photograph!!!!

I keep seeing all of these really cute explosion box things.  So, I figured what the heck why not try it out :)  Over at Cooking With Cricut they have a sswirls and twirls challenge going on so I thought this would be a fun way to do that!

To get started I watched a YouTube video.  That was definitely worth my time! I love how easy YouTube makes our life. 

One thing I learned for next time.  Use DOUBLE SIDED card stock for this project.  Trust me.  It would have saved me some money on Excederin.  Oh well, live and learn. 

Overall this was a fun project.  It is for a friend that is TRYING to recover from surgery but it is taking longer than expected.  Hopefully this will bring a little smile to her face.

Most of the paper I used for this is from the DCWV Garden Party Stack.  I did cut a few images on my Cricut to add to this.  I took butterflies from Paper Pups and Give a Hoot, the silhouettes are from A Child's year.  Oh the swirls are from Accent Essentials. The stamp is from Stampin' Up.  I don't do much with stamps so that is a skill I need to learn.

If you want some "how to" info let me know and I will show you where I learned.

Vinyl on Wall!

Before

After

ANOTHER snow day!  The last day of February and we are getting dumped on.  At least I get a day off from work with my kids. :)

In my craft space (I can't really call it a room but it is a space I have taken over for my "stuff") the walls are just plain green.  Nothing really matches in there which drives my husband nutso!  I love it because it actually means he won't bug me when I am in there. ;)  I used Lyrical Letters, black vinyl, and my favorite- transfer tape!  For the MOST part this was fun.  The vinyl and I had a few discussions about staying put when I told it to.  We also disagreed on how to make it all look straight.  In the end I won and the vinyl is stuck where I wanted it.

So today I thought I would put a quote on the wall.  My mother is really good with finding quotes so I asked her to help me.  She found this one and I thought it was appropriate.  When I put it up my 9 year old said, "Yep, Mom that is you.  You have a lot of enthusiasm and you make great stuff."  Got to love that kid!

Giving credit- this quote was said by Earl Nightingale.

Thanks for visiting!

Yay! An award!

Thanks Martha for the award! Go on over and visit her blog at  The Card Boutique!  It is very kind of you to give this to me!!!

The Liebster Award is designed to bring new blogs to light. It is a great way to share blogs that might not otherwise be seen or ones you may want to share with others. I am here to honor 3-5 blogs to bring awareness to other wonderful blogs.
As a recipient you must share the love and pay it forward by:
1-Creating a post where you blog about the Liebster award & reveal your 3-5 blog picks
2-Let them know you chose them
3-Copy & paste the blog award on your blog
4-Have faith that your followers will rally & show their crafty love back out to those you awarded
5-Have fun!

Here are my picks:

There are so many that I would love to pass this on to!  It is amazing what kind of work people can do!
1. http://littlescrappieces.blogspot.com/

2. http://dreamsofcrafting.blogspot.com/
3. http://craftsncardscricutcorner.blogspot.com/
4. http://notclutter.blogspot.com/

St. Patty's Day Card

The entire pot is gold but with flash and cameras it just looks yucky!

Here is a fun St. Patrick's day card I made this morning while watching MORE SNOW fall.  I don't think we will EVER see grass again but at least there is some green on this card.

The hat is cut using A Child's Year.  The shoes and pot of gold are cut using Paper Doll Dress Up.

I embossed the hat using my Stars Fiskars embossing plates. 

For the hat I used foam dots to make it stick out off the page.

Thank you so much for visiting my blog!  I love reading comments and tips. :)

This card is for a few challenges.  I enjoy trying to combine elements, it makes it more of a challenge.  For the Peachy Keen Challenge I had to have the banner.  I REALLY struggled with what to do with that.  I redid things about 30 times and was just about to give up when I got this one.

Over at Cricut Cardz Challenge you were to make a St. Patrick's Day card with no shamrock.  So I used my Gypsy to get rid of the shamrock on the hat.

Then at The Paper Variety you are challenged to do the "Sew Much Fun" theme and have some real or faux stitching.  I actually saw this challenge, that a fellow addict sent me , and thought there was no way I could pull it off.  Turns out I had fun with it.

Dina is having her first blog challenge over at Crazy for Cricut go on over and support her there!

Check out "Just Green It" at DYSU

Again, THANK YOU for visiting!!!  I think I will go make more projects so I can tell hubby I was too busy to clean today. :)

Tacky Enough?

This card is for the Tacky Tuesday challenge at September 9th.  The card needs to have the word "chick" on it and a chick.  I got the chick from A Child's Year.  The "Rule" comes from Give a Hoot.  It actually says "Trees Rule" but I used my Gypsy to get rid of the "trees".  I cut the "Chicks" out with Base Camp.

Tacky and quick... but hey it was cool to practice using the tool on my Gypsy where I hid the word trees.  I liked trying that out.

Challenge Card

HELP!  I can never seem how to use my heat embossing tool!!!  I burn everything.  I don't know when to STOP. (Not knowing when to stop is not a problem for me just with this.  Turns out I have an issue with that in general.  I am assuming advice on that is far more expensive!) I start heating it and I keep thinking it needs more.  I need advice!!!  So PLEASE give me some tips.

This is school vacation week for us.  Of course I end up sick, so I am crafting between naps.  Why is it that we end up sick on vacation weeks?  I am thinking it may have something to do with my classroom full of 5 and 6 year olds coughing and sneezing on me prior to vacation... just a thought.

I found a  bunch of challenges this week.  I have also found some pretty darn cool people on here!  I love that they are sending me more links to challenges and feeding my addictions!

Guess why the flower is there?  Yep, an embossing screw up!

I had my thumb there while holding the image for the heat gun.

The inside is not fancy at all but the sentiment is from Paisley.

For this card I used all basic solid cardstock. 

I pressed silver pigment ink onto the sunglasses before sprinkling them with purple embossing powder.

I used my embossing heat gun.  I blow that on top of the cut, I saw something online that suggested heating from beneath... what do others do?  I really need help not burning my stuff!

Thanks for visiting!  I love followers.  If you find my projects amusing or my rants entertaining follow me.  I promise there will be many more pleas for help and total misfit crafts!

 This card was created using the Paisley Cricut cartridge for the Cricut Chaos Challenge.

The card is done as a shape card for the Jitter Buggin' Challenge

I am putting it in this other embossing challenge at Linda's Creativity with hopes that SOMEONE ANYONE can stop by and teach me how to do this right. :)
This card is also for the All About Girls challenge at My Sheri Crafts!

My First Blogger Award!

Thank you so much Heather for my first blog award!  YAY!!!!

So it looks like I need to do the following upon receiving this award:  Pay it forward to 8 others talented people, and tell you 8 things about myself.  So here it goes:

8 gifted women I think deserve this award are as follows:

1. Let's Craft Together

2. The Card Boutique

3. chick-n-scrap

4. In The Pink Cathryn

5. Paper Compulsions

6. Evannas Paper Palace

7. Debbies Dash of This and That

8. Little Scrap Pieces

Each of these ladies have created something beautiful.  Check them out and follow their blogs!

Now for the 8 things I need to tell you about myself:

1. I have 2 beautiful and energetic children.

2. Cooking is NOT my thing.

3. I dated my husband for less than a month before we were engaged.

4. Teaching was not my first career, but is my favorite.

5. I am a follower of Christ.

6. I live in the same small town I grew up in even though I swore I never would.

7. I love planning trips and getting incredible bargains.  I think it would be fun to be a travel agent.

8. I am a little too honest at times.

Thanks for visiting my blog!  I appreciate you :)

Cup of H2O card

HELP I am addicted to blogs!!!  Somehow I need to get other things in my life done.  The laundry pile is only getting smaller because we are pulling our daily outifts out of it.  The sink is not filled with dishes because we are ordering out and using paper plates.  Oh well, I do love seeing the projects others make! :) 

This week I saw two challenges of interest and thought I would jump in.  I love having an excuse to CRICUT!


First Cooking with Cricut, one of my new favorites, has a challenge to use embossing.  So I embossed cute little bubbles on the glass for the water.  I used my Fiskars embossing plates.  I also used a pencil and dabbed the eraser to emboss dots on the inside that show on the front.  I used some fun embossing powder and my embossing heat gun thingy.  Of course, I did burn part of the card, at least it wasn't my injured thumb from my last project!

Then over at  Cricut Cardz Challenge, a new blog for me, they are challenging you to use a cup cut from any cartridge.  Sweet, an excuse to use "From My Kitchen" for the first time!  So I cut the cup out with that. 

For the font I used "Don Juan."

I used Fiskars decorative edge scissors down the side.  Wouldn't you know it I just realized the dang paper is double sided!  I searched and searched for the right shade of blue when making the cup and it was right on the back side of the paper.  I feel like a TOTAL MISFIT!  I would love to tell you what the paper is but I don't have a clue how to read this side label thing to say what it is.  Someone please tell me the concepts will come.

This card is for one my favorite co-workers.  We have told each other we will start drinking water together.  My vice is Pepsi and/or Coke and hers is Iced Tea.  So, this card is a little encouragement for her!  She is also a fellow Cricuter so I think she will find it fun... maybe not perfect but fun anyway :).

Valentine Treats for Teachers

For a Valentine's treat my kids wanted to dip pretzels in chocolate.  So we got some pretzel rods and dipped them in white chocolate and then sprinkled them in pink to be more festive!

I took recycled tin cans and made something to put them in to dress them up a bit.  My son and daughter picked very different styles for their teachers!

 The font on this one is Gypsy Font

The font on this one is A Child's Year.  The letters and dots on this one were done with white contact paper.  I also did learn that the contact paper would peel off the paper without any issue.  That was a discovery I was very happy to make!

Now, the damage from this little project... don't try to wash out the inside of a can with a lot of strength while running your thumb around the inside rim.  I have bled through a few band aids on my thumb in the past couple hours as a result of that choice :)

For challenge at  My Sheri Crafts
This is also for the "Something Sweet" challenge at Cooking With Cricut.  What is sweeter than chocolate dipped pretzels?!

Another name sign

There is someone on my shopping list that likes pink flamingos and golfing... how in the world can I tie that together I wondered?  My husband thought the idea of a flamingo driving a golf cart was ridiculous... so of course I had to make the flamingo drive the golf cart.  The person I was making this for has their "winter" home done in yellows, blues, and white so I wanted to bring in those colors.  Here is what the final product is...

Sorry about my reflection in the way here!  I also had to crop the heck out of it to hide the HUGE pile of laundry in the background... lots of laundry got washed this weekend while I crafted.  Of course it is all in the chair now.  I keep thinking MAYBE my husband will see that it is right next to him and fold it- hey a woman can dream right?!

This is not my favorite work I have done but it seems just right for the person I made it for, so I am going to go with it.

I used a regular frame that my hubby painted white for me.  Then for Cricut cartridges I used Life's A Beach and Everyday Paper Dolls.

Monkey classroom Valentines- cupid and heart challenge

Thanks for visiting from the Cupid and Heart challenge at Paper Playtime

For my classroom I wanted to make Valentine cards that weren't your typical pink and red with love phrases on them.  So, I went with monkeys.  I made them small just like the size of most store bought ones.  The are 4x3.

For the monkey I used the Paisley Cricut cartridge.  The hearts are from Stamping Up, Loads of Love.  I put one of the sticky foam squares under the hearts to add some dimension.

Also for Abby's Scrappy Mom's Challenge

First Blog Hop- 100th day of school banner

I have never done a blog hop... I created a blog just so I could participate in things like this so here is my first chance!

My Pink Stamper is doing the blog hop.  I watch her blog faithfully and am pretty excited about participating.  The challenge was to do black with our favorite colors.  I teach Kindergarten so when I do something for school I LOVE any bright colors I can get my hands on!  Monday we are celebrating our 100th day of school so I thought this was a good excuse to make a banner.

To do this I used Celebrations and Cuttin' Up Cricut cartridges.  I would love any feedback on this project or my others.  I am new to this and love when people share ideas with me!!!

Most of all THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR STOPPING BY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Personalized Body Wash

One of my dear friends has a special little girl.  I promised that little girl a prize if she lost her tooth.  She was also giving her mom a hard time, like all girls do, the other night over a bath.  So I thought maybe her own special soap would make that smoother for mom... who knows, if she is as independent as my child nothing helps!!!

I started with a regular body wash I got at the drugstore.  I did use Goo Gone to remove the label residue.  It was quite yucky!!!

 Then I cut out the name and Hello Kitty on Dollar Tree contact paper.  I did use transfer paper this time to get the lettering on the bottle.  I think transfer paper is worth every penny!!!!!  I am a believer.

For this I used the Learning Curve and Hello Kitty Greetings Cricut cartridges.  What I liked best is this was a super easy and fast project!

My daughter's project- Math Night Bookmarks

Good Morning!

I haven't posted in a few days but wanted to show you a project my 7 year old took on.  She loves the Cricut as much as, if not more than I do!  Math Night is coming up at school and they need bookmarks to see in the "store." We have always tried to express to our children the value of things you make with your own hands.  When we make things with our own hands we talk about, think about, and pray for those who receive what we have made.  As a mom, I love doing this with my kids.  It is entertaining and enjoyable to hear the things my kids share with me during those moments.  During the making of these bookmarks I enjoyed time hearing my daughter talk about how she prays for people and why she prays for them.  I walked away from this project thinking "wow, I have a cool and thoughtful kid."  What more can a mom ask for?!

Posting pics of my daughter on my blog still makes me weary. I like to live in the false sense of security that if I post only on Facebook her face is safe... I know I know.  So here you see only her little hands.