A Little One is on the way! -- LO for BBTB

I love the New Arrival cartridge for the Cricut machine -- it's a must-have if you have any baby things to do at all. Our challenge over at Bitten By the Bug this week was to use the train cut. This layout isn't my favorite -- one of those things that just didn't turn out on paper the way it looked in your head -- but you should definitely check out all the other creations this week. The projects are just too cute, and a lot of them show how versatile this cart really is!

All the cuts here are from New Arrival. I sized the train in CDS, and I cut all the other little shapes at around 2". "Little One" is cut at 1 1/2". I use Making Memories paper, a Jolees flower on the baby, and some ric-rac. I sewed the mat for the picture to make a journaling pocket. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this lo -- I may use it for a picture from the baby shower my family is doing for me, or I may save it as a gift for someone else.

This week's Bitten by the Bug challenge!

Our challenge this week was to use the star from George. I've used this one a lot, but most for boy-type things, so I wanted to try it in a more feminine and grown-up card. I added the flourish from JOTS in CDS, then cut the shadow with scallop scissors. The glitter dots are pink stickles. "shine" is from Stamped, welded and sized in CDS on Smooth mode and covered in translucent glitter. The corners are from Jasmine, cut on RDS at 1 1/2". Truth be told, this is one of those cards that you keep adding stuff because it's never quite right and then you hate it because you've been looking at it for so long! :) TFL!

An elephant never forgets...

Our challenge over at Bitten by the Bug this week was to use the Elephant from Zooballoo. This is one of my favorite little shapes, but I've only ever used it for very kid-oriented designs, so I challenged myself to come up with something grown up (but still fun!). Here's what I did -- I found this notebook in the $1 bin at Michaels a long time ago -- the cover was cream with the green stripe and a green T in the bottom right corner. I used stamps from the Fancy Pants Pollen Dust set (got these for $10, I couldn't believe it!), the cute little elephant, and the flourish-y shape and title are from Alphalicious. I put that shape/title together in Design Studio -- easy peasy!
I made this with the thought to give it away as I gift, but it's so cute I think I might just hang on to it! :)

I'm in love...

So a month or so ago I took the plunge and bought Sure Cuts a Lot, the software you can use with your Cricut that allows it to cut any TTF font (including dingbats!) on your computer, but I haven't gotten much of a chance to play with it until now. Well, I discovered that not only can it cut fonts, but it will also let you cut any SVG file. With the programs I have, that basically means I can cut anything I can draw -- yippee!

I've been doing some reorganizing and in my scraproom and needed to find a new home for my flower collection and the magnet board I did a while back. (I'm sure some of these flowers would like to find a new home on a project -- since I almost never use them -- but that's a post for another time.) I bought this shelf unfinished from the craft store, and I'd also just bought a big pack of Quickutz vinyl on a really great deal at Costco, so I decided to fancy it up. I drew these flourishes and the little birdie using my Bamboo pen tablet (love it!), then turned them into SVG files and cut them in vinyl with SCAL. Voila! I LOVE how this turned out! I used Cricut Design Studio to create the rows of dots for the ledge. I think I'm going to have a LOT of fun with these new toys.

Birthday Party for my mom!

I've been working on the plans for a big 50th birthday bash for my mom for months, and last night was the big night! I was so happy with how everything turned out (even though she wasn't really surprised after all...).

It all started with this adorable free digi-kit by Ronna Penner, which I downloaded from www.shabbyprincess.com. I used the flowers and paper from the kit to create this invitation. I drew the dress, balloons, and body parts on white paper with a thick marker, then scanned them in so I could work with them in my graphics program. I LOVED the result -- so much in fact, that I decided to base all the decorations for the party on the colors and feel of the kit!

I made these centerpieces for all the tables using Bazzill cardstock that coordinated with the kit. I cut all the hats from the Cricut Celebrations cartridge. This was the first time I used this cartridge! I never thought I wanted it, but I couldn't resist when I found it for $25. I'm SO glad I gave in! I bought these little tin pails at WalMart and put floral foam in the bottom. I painted bamboo skewers white and added the hats to the top, then filled the pails with curled ribbon. Each centerpiece was sitting on an oversized flower that I printed from the digi-kit.



Here are a few more examples of the various centerpieces:


Here's one of my favorite parts of the decorations! I printed this 2' x 5' banner on my dad's large format printer using elements from the kit. Then I made use of my parents' huge windows and the darkness for a fun and meaningful idea -- I got one of those markers they use for writing on car windows and asked all the guests to write one word they thought described my mom. She totally loved it!



I used the base design of the invitation to make this guest book/album, bound with the Bind-it-all. All the guests signed it, and there is plenty of room for pictures. I printed the inside pages with a border and some of the flowers from the kit, so they are all ready to adhere the pics and do some journalling, and the album will be done!



After the party was over, I grabbed my favorite out of all the party hats to make a card! I created the circle card with the window using Cricut Design Studio by making two 5" circles, welding them together, then adding a 3" circle to the middle of one of the big circles. I then cut the yellow scallop (which is the edge of the card -- the brown in the background is just so you can see the yellow better) with Mini Monograms and adhered the circle card to it. I added a 4" white circle to the inside for writing. I adhered the hat to the front, added the doodle outlines with a white gel pen, and wrote "happy birthday" on the band. I love it!



Phew! I have to admit I'm exhausted, but I love how it all turned out! And the best part of all is that it made my mom feel so happy and loved, and that was the whole point!

So excited about Cricut Design Studio!

I have some fun projects I want to show you all in a bit, but while I'm finishing those up I just had to say how excited I am about the new Cricut Design studio software! So far I've just downloaded the free trial version, but my little mind is just brimming with ideas about the possibilities. You can do so much with this software -- it makes the Cricut more flexible and creative than ever before. You can bet you'll see a lot of use of this software in my future projects. So far lots of people (including me) have had some technical difficulties, but I still think the potential far outweighs it. Hopefully PC will back up the software as well as they have the bug itself. Here's a very cool link -- a blog where you can download some really amazing cutting files!

http://cricutsoftcuts.blogspot.com/

Back soon!