Monkey Business

Well, we are all moved in to our new house and are so happy. My favorite part is a craft room! My husband just keeps starting at all of my stuff in awe that I had all of this hidden and stashed away in our small apartment. Anyway, a small mishap the day we moved in has left me with an ankle sprain and orders to sit and rest which I am absolutely no good at. So, last night we finished unpacking the craft room and today I just SAT and crafted. Such fun!

My son moved out of a toddler bed when we made the move and we bought him bedding from Kohl's that has sock monkeys on it.

I searched and searched for things to hang on his walls. Then, my clever sister over at Crafting Misfit told me that there is a sock monkey on B is for Boy. I went and got that and some cheap frames on clearance at K-Mart and this is what we came up with! (I let him pick all the colors and hats, he had so much fun!)

 Challenges:
1. Scrapalicious USA (anything but a card)
2. And for "show and tell" at my sister's blog Crafting Misfit

Home Decorating

So, I haven't had any time to do any projects lately as we have been house hunting. Now that we have found a house and will be moving in at the end of next month (fingers crossed that all goes as planned) I can't stop thinking about home decorating. We have been renting for 10 years and I've never been able to paint a single wall. So, I'm uber-excited.  Looking at art etc; in stores and online got me to thinking that maybe I can use my cricut to make some tasteful decorations for the house. I don't want it to look like a dorm room or a high school art project, but I am starting to brainstorm ideas.

Here is my first project. I think I'll hang it in my new craft room! (Yes, craft room! No more desk shoved into the living area! Have I mentioned that I am excited???)

It was so hard to get a picture because of the glare!

I used the dragonfly from Gypsy Wanderings (I am still surprised everytime I look for an image it always seems to be on Gypsy Wanderings! Quickly becoming one of my most used cartridges!) and the paper is from DCWV Mi Casa (I told my husband...okay now you know my color scheme for our house! lol. Love these bright colors!).

I cut a piece of black cardstock to 12x4.75 to fit the frame.
Using my gypsy I lined the dragonflies up just how I wanted them and cut it.
I saved the negative and tossed the actual butterflies.
I cut three pieces of paper from Mi Casa into 4.75x4 inch squares and adhered them to a 12x4.75 scrap. I then used a gluestick to adhered the black paper on top of the colored paper.

It was so easy and looks seamless (rather than cutting the dragonflies from printed paper and gluing them onto black. It eliminated any need to measure and space them out just right and looks great this way!

I'll enter this in the following challenges:
1. Anything Goes at Getting Cricky (check them out, my sister Rebecca H is a guest designer!)
2. Pick your poison at Cooking With Cricut
3.  There is no #3...lol...clearly I should have been less selfish and made a project for my husband or father if I wanted to enter challenges this week! ;)

I love this Stationary Box!

Well, for my Mother-in-Law for Mothers' Day I really wanted to make her something. I came across this tutorial to make a Stationary Box and adapted it to her taste and what I had for supplies. I absolutely love this and can't wait to make more of them!

I'm not putting any instructions here as they are all explained so clearly in the tutorial. I did make some adaptations, though. I didn't make an address book and put less pockets.

 

It has 6 cards, a book of stamps, a cute little pen and a bunch of clear stickers with greetings on them for her to add to the cards before she sends them out.

 

The box is made using 12x12 card stock. The original instructions use only two pieces, but I used some extra patterns.  I also added velcro dots to help keep the box closed better and they work very well.

The cover is also made of cardstock. I used Mother's Day Bouquet for the flower embellishment (as well as for all the cards). The cover sits on top of the box to help keep it closed.

Bouquet of Freshly Sharpened Pencils

My favorite line from you've got mail "I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address".

I have a fetish for school supplies. I love them. Really love them! The smell of pencils is intoxicating, lol. So, when I saw a friend post this project I had to do it too. It's teacher appreciation week and we're sending this in for my daughter's teacher in the morning.

The flowers are 2 inch flowers from Mother's Day Bouquet and the paper is a combination of random scraps. Then I just used a hole punch in the center and stuck the eraser through.  The projects cost me $2 ($1 for pencils and the bucket was from the $1 bin at Target).

I'm entering this at the Fantubulous Cricut Challenge to make a project with at least 3 flowers.
Also at Cooking with Cricut for a similar challenge that must include purple (I know you can't see it well, but there are at least 5 purple flowers in there, lol!. Also at Amber's Crafts and Stuff where the project is to make a project for a special lady (my daughter's teacher!).

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.