Easter

Welcome to another week at Fantabulous Cricut!  We would LOVE to see what you are creating for Easter! Fantabulous Cricut is an awesome blog where you can link up your project and have people tell you what they think of it!  Sharing what we do can be very rewarding!

You may have seen my earlier post where I am challenging myself to do 13 layouts and use 13 things from my stash.  For this I went with an Easter layout.  I had a "Garden Party" stack that I hardly used because it seemed to "girly" for me.  I think I put it to pretty good use.

I had a ton of different photos that I wanted to include on here so up the side I stacked a bunch of pictures randomly to get them in.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog!  I appreciate you stopping by!!!

Spring is in the Air week at Fantabulous Cricut

For some reason my post didn't post.  Have you scheduled blogger posts that didn't post?  I am wondering what the heck I messed up.  Oh well!

Here is another layout in my little challenge to myself.  It is for the "Spring Is In the Air" challenge over at Fantabulous Cricut.  You really should come by and link up your spring project.

I cut the big kite on the left from Create a Critter and then my girl and dog with kite is from A Child's Year.

Layouts are really hard to photograph I am discovering.  Does anyone have tips for me?!  This project looks cute in person I think but on my blog not so much.  How can I photograph better?  I would love the advice!

St. Patrick's Day monkey card

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day (one day early ;) )

I have been hiding in my craftroom most of the day today and made a card for my daughter and one for my son for tomorrow.  My daughter loves St. Patrick's Day because I make green food.  She looks forward to that!  She is easy to keep happy.

For this card I used the monkey on Create a Critter and a Peachy Keen face.  Isn't it cute?!

The shamrock is from Paper Doll Dress Up.  I inked the edges of it and folded the sides up a bit just to get some dimension on it.  I used the foam pop dots to put the monkey and shamrock on so he could swing from his "vine."

The green layer of paper is actually tan paper that I chalked green because I couldn't find a piece of paper I was happy with.  I have 900 pieces of paper (at least) and not one that I wanted.  

Have you seen the DESIGN TEAM CALL FOR MY NEW BLOG?!  Check it out Our Crafty Girls blog!

I am entering this into
Peachy Keen- Anything Goes

Luck O' Irish to ya!

Welcome to another week and another challenge over at Fantabulous Cricut!

We are celebrating the fun day of St. Patrick's Day over there!  We would love to see what project you have to link up!

I cut the hat from the Paper Doll cartridge.  The layer right behind it I inked an embossing envelope then put the paper in it to emboss.  So it inked the paper for me.  I sanded down the paper on the hat to make it appear more worn.

Thanks so much for visiting!!!

If you haven't checked out my new challenge blog and DT call please stop over there and check it out!

Challenges:
Red Carpet Studio- 2 shades of green
Scrappy Frogs Challenge- use green
Simply Create Too- St. Patricks

Design Team Call!

My sister and I have started a fun new challenge blog together. We wanted something different from what you see already out there and we wanted something involving our kids. Check out our call here.

Here are some of the details:

(You must go to the blog to submit... this is just the information.)

Our Crafty Girls

Design Team Call!

Welcome to Our Crafty Girls, a brand new challenge blog that encourages us to spend time teaching and crafting with our kids. Our names are Rebecca and Melissa. We are sisters and we each have two creative kids that love to get in on our crafting. In our time off from work we love to spend it in our craft rooms, using our Cricut or making other creations. Our daughters, in particular, have been bitten by the crafting bug and want in on our craft time! This year they both got their own Cricut for Christmas from our parents and are eager to show off their projects just like we do on our blogs.

This led us to this new challenge blog: projects created by moms for their kids and projects created by kids with help from their moms.

But, in order for this to be successful we need help! We need a design team. We are looking for a group of crafters who have a child they would like to craft with (daughter, son, grandchild, niece, family friend, etc;). As a design team member you would be committing to posting a project based on our theme every other week.

While we both are primarily paper crafters and use our Cricut for most of our projects, we are open to any type of crafters (sewing, painting, whatever it is you do!). We are novices ourselves. We are full time working moms and we craft as a hobby. Our focus really is on personality and creativity not on perfection.

So how do you join? Please email  us (ourcraftygirlsblog@gmail.com) a direct link to a blog post referencing this design team call and a link to our blog. That post must include two projects: 1 project by you that is geared toward a child and one project created by your child with your help. In the post please write a quick note about what type of crafts you like to do and the age/interest of the child you will be crafting with.

Deadline for submissions is 3/18 and we will let you know on 3/22 if you were chosen.

Requirements:
1. You must have a blog (to showcase your work and link to the challenge blog)
2. You must commit to posting every other week. One week will be a project made by you, the other week will be a project made by a child with your help. You must stick to the theme we provide.
3. You must commit to visiting the blogs of people who enter challenges in your week and voting for a winner.
4. The term commitment is three months: 3/29-6/29. If this is working out and you want to continue on with us you can certainly ask to rejoin for another design term.
5. You must participate in two blog hops (One at the start of the design term and one to end the design term).

More details:

• We will divide designers into "Team A" and "Team B". Challenges will be posted every week on the blog, but you will only be required to contribute every other week (Team A does two weeks, Team B does two weeks).
• Any project for this challenge must be new and you must link to this blog in your post.
• We will give you a full list of the dates of your projects and the theme for each date as soon as we accept you as a design team member.
• Challenges will start on Fridays and end on Thursdays. You must submit a photo of your project and a direct link to your blog post to your team captain by 10pm EST Wednesday Nights.

If you are interested in checking out our blogs to see the kinds of things we create see the links below:

Melissa: craftygator.blogspot.com

Rebecca: craftingmisfit.blogspot.com

Please feel free to email us with any questions you have!

Another Sympathy Card

 

If you saw my previous post about the sympathy card then you got the background on this one.  I made this one as simple as possible after my husband told me the other one was too flash.  I do believe he was wrong but sometimes it is good to let them think we are taking their advice ;).

One thing about death is that the rest of the world just keeps going on around you and you want it all to stop.  I remember my first trip to the grocery store after my sister died.  Someone got in line in front of me and was very pushy.  I just started bawling there in the middle of the store.  I couldn't believe the woman had been so insensitive to my pain.  Of course she had no idea what I had on my heart but when you lose someone so close to you you expect the entire world to understand the pain.  Then I try to flip it around and remember that everywhere I go there is someone feeling that immense unconsolable pain.  That feeling of complete loss and lack of understanding.  With social media we are more aware then ever of the up to minute (sometimes annoying) aspects of everyone's lives.  However, on my "friends" list very few people are posting about their actual pain, the depth of their sorrows.  Who can I be to those people?  How can I be a better person for those in need?  When my friend's dad died I just felt HELPLESS.  There was nothing I could do.  No pain I could erase.  No burden I could ease.  I send a card but really at the end of the day I just wanted her to know, "Yes, I care.  Yes your pain is real.  Yes it SUCKS!" 

Sorry for the long rant today.  Death and loss are too real for me to gloss over it, as is the case with many of you. We shouldn't let death define who we are but instead let it empower us to be a light in someone's pain.

I'm Not Crazy and a blog challenge

So this video perfectly describes how I was feeling on February 14th.  I looked around my classroom and saw 700 flowers to be sorted, labeled, and distributed on that day.  Not to mention doing my real job- teaching!  I was a bit overwhelmed! Yeah, I had already been waking from dreams labeling hearts to put on the dang things.  I told my husband whatever he did NOT to buy me flowers for Valentine's Day!!!!

I had a friend offer to come in and help me.  How amazing that was!!!!  I could NEVER have gotten it done without her.  So here is a thank you card I made for her for her help.

This is also for my first challenge as a DT member at Fantabulous Cricut!  This week it is "Bye Bye Birdie" so come on over and submit your project with a bird on it!  I used Songbird for this,   I have had the cartridge forever but never used it so I was happy to pull that out of hiding!

Have you ever bought a cartridge then been totally disappointed with it?  That is sort of how I felt about Songbird.  Have you used Songbird?  I would love to see pics of what you have done with this cartridge.   I guess I am just not crazy about the font.  I don't know what it is about it.  However, I am thankful we had this challenge so I had the opportunity to use it!

 

Exciting News and Party Favors

Today I am so excited to announce that I am now a part of the Fantabulous Cricut
 design team!  I applied thinking there was no way in heck they would pick me because their creators are so talented.  Then she did!  In fact I mistook the initial invite as spam and had to go back through and reread it.  This is one of my favorite blogs because she does so much with it.  There is always some kind of inspiration around to get you going!

So come on over and check out the amazing DT I am lucky to be a part of!!!!

Here is a little something you could use as a quick fun party favor.  I loved how easy these were and that they can easily be great gifts for boys.  Boy things are so hard!!!