Todays stuff

Alright... project of the day: Adorable personalized dog tags riveted into the new harnesses!

Yep. Did it myself! We went to PetSmart this morning and got new (coordinating) harnesses for the pups, and DH wanted to get them new dog tags, since Alex chewed his off and Sophie lost hers a couple of weeks ago. We found these adorable ones that fit perfectly! Used the crop-a-die to punch holes in the harness, then a small eyelet setter hammer to beat the metal into place, lol... My tools from the bind-it-all came in handy, too, when DH made Alex's first and it didn't turn out well, so we decided to take it out and try again... Zutter has the BEST pliers. They both got baths tonight and are happy as clams in their new wear! Here is a picture of poor Sophie in the bathtub. Bless her heart!

I had a request to post my craft room, soooo I straightened it up a bit and took some pictures. It took me awhile to find my camera cord (I put it somewhere before we left for vacation) but finally found it. Anyway, here is it! This is the left side... "Have a place for everything and everything in it's place."

Here is the right side (yep... I made those shelves from some wood and trim at Lowes!) I still want 13 more JetMax cubes to make things look good, but my stores no longer carry the good ones, so I'll have to save up my money and go shopping big-time one day!

Oops... looks like I'm missing the other wall... it just has a window, my sewing table, some plastic box-like shelves, and a door. You can kinda see the door and the shelf things in the picture above.

Alright... maybe I'll actually get something crafty done tomorrow! We'll see!

New dog cage = new blank wall space

Today I finally broke down and bought a bigger dog cage. Alex loves to stretch out and we felt so bad for him being cramped up in a tiny area (that's recommended for Miniature Schnauzers but is just TOO small!) so we decided to buy him one the same size as Sophies'. Of course things never go to plan, however, because our Walmart no longer sells anything I need. EVER. They only had 'intermediate' (What Alex already has) and Extra Large. Sooo I decided to give Sophie the bigger cage (she will be the one who has puppies, after all) and give Sophie's old cage to Alex. As soon as I put them in there they freaked out (they know better than to get in a cage that doesn't belong to them!) but after a little bit they were okay. They both stretched out on the sides closest to each other, so I think this will work!

The only problem is that now I've got a big blank wall space above their cages. The coat-rack was there before (and Christmas tree in winter) so no one ever saw that area. Now I need to do something to it! Ack!

Laptop Decor

I decided to update the look of my laptop with some new Cricut Vinyl. I wanted to use the chandeliers from French Manor, and my sister added my name (from Mini Monograms) and the hearts (from Lovestruck). I'm really excited about how it turned out, though I will probably add in some more hot pink (had it on the last design) to fill in the middle spot (where a chandelier was put on upside-down... oops!)

Busy Busy Busy

Soo I haven't posted in awhile. Just finished up being super-busy with Vacation Bible School and a trip to Myrtle Beach. I can honestly say I don't know which one was more fun!

My sister's birthday is coming up at the end of the month and I've had her present for awhile now but figured I better go ahead and wrap it so she won't see it if she comes over before then. I didn't have any cute wrapping paper, so I used sheets of 12x24 K&Co. paper to wrap the HUGE gift, and used fit-to-page on my Ella to write "Happy Birthday" using Celebrate with Flourish. I wish PC would hurry up and add this to my Gemma. She's missing out on some super-cute images! I used my phone to take the picture so it's not great quality. At the end of the month we should be getting our new Droid X phones though, and they are supposed to have a flippin' awesome camera. Then maybe my 2 am pictures will look better!

Anyway, hopefully more to come soon. Oh, and I became a Creative Memories consultant this week, too. I am going to be SO excited when my kit arrives. My favorite things!

Freezer Paper Images

I haven't posted in a few days because I've been SUPER busy getting ready for SonQuest Rainforest Vacation Bible School at church. We've been hanging paper vines throughout the fellowship hall and I've spent hours upon hours painting the backdrop for the sanctuary. I did have a chance to play around the other night, however, with the freezer-paper technique of designing shirts. (I say this like it was fun, but in all honesty I was trying it out to hopefully use it for one of the crafts!)

Here is a sock-monkey from B is for Boy on scrap white fabric. Two layers was a little difficult; I still need to work on that. I didn't finish him... just trying it out.

Next is a white birdhouse from botanicals on scrap black fabric. (You can kind of see something else I was doing through the freezer paper background... disregard that! lol)

And here is one layer of the HM guitar. I tried this image because after watching a YouTube video (CleverSomeday- strawberry shirt) to learn the process, HappyHappyJoyJoy has a video posted where she's making this picture. I thought I'd give it a shot! Not too bad!

That's all for now. Hopefully after the kids decorate their tote-bags during VBS I'll upload some pictures to share. Maybe before then I'll get crafty again. Who knows!


Life has been VBS VBS VBS for the past week. After next Sunday I'll be absolutely exhausted!

New Baby Book- VERY GIRLY :-)

Here is a baby book I worked on last night and finished today (after helping the mothership make her pond look gorgeous!). I love love love the paper and almost didn't use it, just because it was so pretty. I used the same G file that I used on the last book, but with the different paper and accent pieces I think it has a completely different look!

Now that I look at the pictures, the pastel colors don't show up very well in the photo (and the fact that I took it in a dark kitchen at 1 am... It's really cute, though. I love the babies! (One is missing a belly button, though... I need to fix that!)

Next page... I used mostly New Arrival, but also threw in Sugar and Spice and Paper Doll Dress Up, too!) I inked the edges of everything, and used my bind-it-all (1 1/4 inch) to bind it. If you don't have one of these machines, you have no idea what you're missing. Even the husband loves it, and he is not a fan of crafting!

The paper is from Brenda Watson (In the same set I used to make the FM album in my previous post). There were 18 sheets of paper in this grouping, I think I used 17 and a half of them! Her designs are so beautiful, and the colors are pretty easy to match! (I love the safety pins... I used a silver marker to color the "metal" part. TOO CUTE!)

Next page... *sigh* I wish you could see the detail in the paper. The pictures truly don't do this book justice!

I LOVE the carriage on Sugar and Spice! And right now I'm addicted to the MS punch... it just sat on my table waiting to be incorporated into this book! I also used Stampin' Up blender pens A LOT. I've got a couple sets of the Stampin' Spots, and the colors i have seem to flow seamlessly into the design.

I put the MS border around the edge of the "giftbasket" which I thought was pretty cute! I colored the bottle and bear with the blender pens, the rolled towel is a different purple pattern from the set.

I love ribbon, too, if you haven't noticed! And this page is SO adorable! I love those dresses (cuts from PDDU). I thought the matted dresses matched the paper so well (the yellow one is the paper). Another example of bad photography: you can barely see the bottle in the corner. In real life, it really shows up nicely.

Here is the back page, I used one of the stork blankets to sign my name. I can't WAIT to get my stamp in the mail. It's going to be AWESOME :-) I do kind of like personalizing the books with an image that matches, though. And since I usually cut out about 5 times as many things as I need to, I've always got plenty of cuts to choose from!

And now my post at 3 am is finally finished. I think I rambled a lot, but it's because I'm kind of hyped up. The Martha Stewart Cake premiered on HSN tonight, and I won a cartridge through a contest they were having on Facebook. I can't seem to sleep, now!

Amore Album

Last night while using my Cricut to cut out pieces for a new baby book I'm in the process of creating, I decided to use my scraps to make a simple album using French Manor. The book is 6 inches tall and the longest page is 12 inches wide.

Pretty simple and classy, I think. The journaling spot on the first page is for explaining what's in the book, or to/from if it was a gift.

I used a Martha Stewart punch to do the borders in black. I just thought that page needed something!

I LOVE the furniture on this cart. And the borders! The next page is pretty simple... I might go back and add something. It would work great for a close-up portrait, though!

And the next page

I wish I had some different ribbon on here, but I don't think I've ever used black/ivory as my color scheme so I had to use what I had on hand. That consisted of skinny black, skinny ivory, skinny polka-dots, and thick polka-dots.

I LOVE the peacock. I didn't put his tail on straight on purpose, just to give it some depth. And the chair is just to cute. And I love the border... which reminds me how much I love my Gypsy!

And on the back I had this amazing frame left over (You can't see the ivory details, but trust me, they're there!) so I used it to write my name on, along with a cute little bird cut.

All of the paper came from a new stack I bought at ACM's by Brenda Watson. The new Baby Book is using her paper, too. I love her designs!!