Stylish Blogger Award

Wow! Thanks to Ellen over at www.cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com/ for giving me this award. It is still so strange to me that total strangers are looking at my projects (let alone that they are enjoying them!) I appreciate all the positive and encouraging comments from people!

So, the rules of this award are:
1. Thank the person who gave you the award by sharing a link back to them
2. Share 8 random things about yourself
3. Award it to 8 bloggers you have recently discovered and tell them about it

8 more random facts about myself:
1. I love the smell of fresh cut grass and can't wait for spring to finally arrive so the lawns get mowed!
2. My family suffered an unimaginable loss 5 years ago when my sister died in a car accident. They say everything happens for a reason, which I hate. However, I will say that since she passed away my other sister and I are so much closer than we ever were before and I wouldn't trade that for anything.
3. Without planning it, the first letter of the names of my kids and my sisters kids spell my mom's maiden name. CARR (Caitlyn, Annie, Ricky and Ryan).
4. I hate/despise any sort of fantasy or alien movie, book, idea.
5. I am a sucker for any romantic comedy. I love how predictable they are, the corny jokes, and the kiss at the end where the camera rotates 360 degrees around them. Can't help it. I just love it.
6. I am a nurse and I love taking care of confused, elderly people. I never thought this would like that aspect of nursing but I have grown to love it.
7. I think I like American Girl dolls and catalogs as much as my 5 year old.
8. I love homemade popcorn with lots of butter and salt.

Now for 8 blogs I have recently discovered (in no particular order): They all have projects that I am inspired by and love (and some ideas I wish I had thought of on my own!)
1. www.lemonlimetangerine.com/
2. scrappin2littleprincesses.blogspot.com/
3. jayne-designs.blogspot.com/
4. crafty-shell.blogspot.com/
5. sonyaspapertrail.blogspot.com/
6. littlescrappieces.blogspot.com/
7. ladyluvbug.blogspot.com/
8. dreiter.blogspot.com/

Happy Easter

So, I've struggled a lot with coming us with a fun Easter card idea and I love what I came up with. Cleaning out the closet this week I found a bag of mini pom-poms and I realized this would be super-cute as bunny tails!
I did by myself an edge puncher this week. I like it, but I need to get better at lining it up. Now I reallllly need something to emboss the paper; I think everything looks too flat/plain without it!

The bunny is from Create a Critter, the patterned paper is American Girl.

 I'me entering this card into the following two challenges:

Fantabulous Cricut "Spring Fling" make a spring card using green, yellow and pink
Celebrate the Occasion make an Easter card and you must use a punch

First project with my Gypsy !!!

So, first I have to admit that the night I got my Gypsy I was having a lot of buyer's remorse. I bought it on a whim and felt guilty about it. Then, I tried to use it and it kept freezing up, wouldn't update etc; After about 5 hours I figured it out and was able to play with it.
It is absolutely going to take some practice as I've come really accustomed to using the books, key pads etc; with the cartridges. However, I LOVED how I could cut so much at one time and being able to weld letters together to make words is awesome.

I made this for the Tacky Tuesday Challenge hosted by septemberninth. The challenge was to use a cow and a sentiment using either "moo" or "udderly". So, this is my cute (and a little cheesy) submission!

 The cow is from Create A  Critter and the moon and stars are from Toy Story.

Crafting Misfit's "A New Season, A New Skill" blog hop

Welcome to our blog hop where we are all showcasing projects that make us try something new!


If you have come from teachdanz.blogspot.com then you are at the right place, if not head over to  Crafting Misfit's site  to start from the beginning. She also has some blog candy there so make sure to visit!   You can also link up your own project there to show off your own new skill.


The twist to this blog hop is that all projects have to have us try something new!  Either a new project, a new technique, or a new material/supply. I've only had a cricut for a few week so just about anything I try is new. I decided to try and make a card that wasn't your standard shape: a new way to fold it or cut it. I've also been anxious to use twine on a card. Lastly, my cartridge "Straight From the Nest" has a lot of slides and I've wanted to use those. I followed the instructions in the booklet that comes with straight from the nest (adapting it to suit my tastes better) and here is what I came up with:

It is a trifold card. The square on the front is attached only to the left side of the trifold and you pull it open there. It was a gift for a baby shower and was a big hit.

 So, the slide has twine folded under. It then wraps around the back of the printed paper. The printed paper is attached with foam dots to the lilac square. (The lilac square is glued to the left side of the trifold).

Here you can see the basic shape of the card.

 I don't usually use my cricut for the inside of the card, but I loved this sentiment for the baby shower as my kids and I had chosen the gift together.





 So, that's my little project. Nothing to jaw-dropping, but for me it was an accomplishment. I just got my gypsy in the mail today so I'll be off playing with that all evening to come up with even better ideas!

Thanks for joining us on our blog hop! Now you are off to see Sue-Ann's project!


teachdanz.blogspot.com

Melissa at http://craftygator.blogspot.com/  **That's me**

Sue-Ann at http://sueannscrafts.blogspot.com/  ((**Go here next!**))

Lolis http://lolis-mycorner.blogspot.com/

Tammy http://cuttinandstampin.blogspot.com/

Meaghan http://craftingwithmeg.blogspot.com/

Amanda http://.whiteruffles.blogspot.com/

Karen http://littlescrappieces.blogspot.com/

Then had back to see Rebecca at http://craftingmisfit.blogspot.com to share your project!

Baby Shower Cake

Well, the baby shower is tomorrow and I just finished the cake. It's not perfect, but I love it. One more project to do tonight and then what will I do with myself? lol.

Now off to make the card to go with her gift!

My first blog award (thanks to my sister ;)

So, my sister has given me my first blog award. She truly is responisble for getting me hooked on my cricut and for getting me back into crafts after not doing them for so long after my kids were born (5 years ago!!) So thanks Rebecca. She does some really cool stuff over at her blog Crafting Misfit.

The rules of the award:
1. Thank the person who sent it to you
2. Tell 7 things about yourself
3. Send this to 5 fellow versatile bloggers

Seven things about me:
1.I have been a Registered Nurse for 10 years and work full time at a hospital during the evening and am home with my two kids during the day. I often wish I could be a stay-at-home mom, but I know I would really miss being a nurse so I can never give that up.

2. When I was getting married at age 21 everyone said we were too  young and I never believed them. Now that I'm 31 and I'm celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary I think they were all right that we were young, but I wouldn't change it for anything!

3. In almost 10 years of marriage we have lived in 5 states (and no we are not in the military!) My husband was in graduate school and has had a series of temporary jobs that have led us around the country a bit. He is on the job market again and we are anticipating a move to state number six.

4. My dream job is to be a professional organizer or a party-planner for kids birthday parties and showers.

5. I have an obsession with pens. Yes, I have a 5 gallon tub of ink pens in my closet.

6. I dream of living in the country on a lot of land with pet sheep and a goat. I live vicariously through an Australian show I found on Netflix called McLeod's Daughters.

7. Not much of a surprise to anyone who knows me but I have a straight-up phobia of mayonnaise, ranch dressing, sour cream and cottage cheese. While I think I have improved some, I still panic if any of these items comes in contact with my skin.

5 bloggers I would pass this along to: (Well, I'm fairly new to the whole blog scene, but these are the 5 read every post I see from - not including my sister whose I check every day:)
1. By Adrian 4 U
2. From Me to You
3. Amo Mi Cricut
4. DD'S Crafts
5. My 3 E's

I love everything all five of these ladies do!!

Another Baby Shower Favor

So, there will be a handful of little girls at the baby shower I'm helping host this weekend so I thought they need little favor bags, too! Using the same umbrella as I used on the party bags last week I came up with these very simple, but adorable, bags of "It's a Girl" Hershey Kisses. I think they'll love them!

Super easy gift card holder

I was looking for a way to dress up a boring gift card that I'm giving someone so got out some paper and came up with something I think is really adorable! After I did the first one and figured out how I liked it I was able to make the 2nd one in about 5 minutes.

 I needed very few supplies:

• 1 piece of carstock (solid color)
• 2 pieces of patterned paper
• Paper Trimmer
• Corner Rounder
• Double Sided Tape (or other adhesive)
• Foam Square adhesives
• Little Pink Jewels

1. Cut the cardstock (solid) 6 1/2 in X 4in
2. Cut one patterned paper2 1/4 in X 3 3/4 in
3. Cut the other patterned paper 1 1/8 in X 3 3/4 in

4. Meausring from the same end, score the card stock at 1 3/8 inches and at 4 inches.

5. Use the corner rounder to round all 4 corners of the carstock and the bottom two corners of the small piece of patterned paper and the top corners of the large piece of patterned paper.

6. Adhere the patterned paper to the outside of the cardstock, lining up the rounded edges.

 7. Place one foam dot where the top flat will close onto the lower flap (to keep it shut).

8. Place two foam dots on the inside to adhere the gift card.





That's it! I think it looks really adorable, and so much better than just giving it plain! I put a pink jewel at the center and kept it simple, but I think I'll play with them more later adding sentiments or cuts form my cricut.

I'm submitting this at Celebrate the Occasion for their "everything birthday, must include a flower" challenge - I love looking at all the projects there every week!

New House card

I have some projects I actually NEED to work on but had a little fun making this quick card tonight. The house is from create-a-critter. I'm still playing with getting color combos and layering right. Oh, and using the right adhesive so it doesn't look messy!

 I'll submit this to the contest at Celebrate the Occasion for their "New House" contest.

Birthday Invitation Re-Do

So, I made what I thought were super-cute invitations for my daughter's 6th birthday party. However, now that I have played with the cricut and, as she said, gotten much better at it, she wanted me to make some new ones. So these are the invitations to her tea party. She did offer me some comfort and told me the others weren't "a total waste because it's always good to get practice".

This is from Once Upon a Princess. The paper was from TJ Maxx for 2.99 for a huge pack and the ribbon was on clearance at Wal-Mart.

Baby Shower Favors

I'm putting together a small baby shower for a friend at work and am very excited about the little favors I made for the guests. I used  my sisters "Tags, Bags, Boxes and More" cartridge to make the gift bags. The umbrella is from Create-a-Critter and the bird is from "Straight from the Nest". THe bags were a bit of a pain to put together, but now that they are all done I love them!

For favors inside the bag I did dove chocolates in pink and purple wrappers and a travel-size lotion from Bath and Body works that they had on sale for $1 each.

I have a few other projects planned for the shower and now I can wait to get started on them!

I'll enter this project in the challenge at Paper Variety called "1, 2, 3" (one bag, 2 treats inside, and 3 decorations on the bag).