Crayons!!

My mom bought me a Crayola Crayon Maker for Christmas, which is supposed to melt bits of old crayon into new ones. I was so excited to try it out! Well, it didn't quite end up being as amazing as I was hoping (After a trip to Walmart for 60 watt candelabra bulbs) but as I was waiting 30 minutes to make 4 tiny crayons I decided to play around with the wax and try out a few things with it.

So first, let's get it straight that I am NOT a baker. I don't cook (although I am getting better). When I went to a pampered chef party a couple of months ago I didn't know what half the items were for. I did see a double boiler, though, and my first thought was "ooooh crayons!!" So I bought it. And yesterday I FINALLY got to try it out. I tore off the paper on old crayons (after sorting them into basic color groups) and melted them in the pot. Then I poured the wax into 3" soap molds. They turned out awesome... but flippin' huge. So I decided to try baking, as mentioned on the Greenbean's Crafterole.

1. I chopped up the crayons into pea-sized bits (yep... pampered chef food chopper and cutting board)

2. I put the tiny pieces in a tiny muffin tin (yep... first use for that pampered chef item, also!) and baked at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Then I let them cool for a few, then put them on the back porch to cool even more (It was beyond freezing outside!) 

3. When Channing brought them in, we popped them out of the pan. and Ta-Da... the perfect size crayon for little hands at church. (And I'm just dying to draw grass with that green... remember how long it used to take when you were little and trying to color the landscape?!? Not anymore!)

Snowflake Cupcakes

Here are some adorable chocolate cupcakes I made to take to church for my favorite kids/teenagers after their Christmas play Wednesday night. They did a FABULOUS job. I was so proud! I used Winter Lace for the fondant/gumpaste cuts, and sugar pearls. The kids loved them!

Circle Stocking Swap

Here is my box of goodies I received from CallieJean on the Circle Board. How fun!

A Package from Kymberlee!

Kymberlee sent me a package in the mail, which I received this morning! (I love substitute mail-man days- the mail runs about 5 hours earlier.) She got me the long cuttlebug mats along with ALL 3 quilling kits, the 3 new seasonal cartridges (I have been eyeing Gingerbread since the moment I saw it), an iRock (the machine that I never knew I needed but I doubt I'll be able to live without now), and some pajamas and fuzzy socks. She also sent a little zipper pull with a puppy on it :-). She's such an awesome friends- I'm off to go play! 

Getting a Head Start on Christmas

I put up my Christmas tree today, yay! The reason I get to post it is because I made the bow for the top in addition putting the whole thing together. Since we moved the dog cages over the summer to the spot by the front door (the place we usually put the tree) it needed a new home, which ended up being in the living room in front of the french doors. The only issue was that the ceiling is a bit lower, so my gorgeous holly-leaf/gold star would not fit on top. 

 And here is a card I made for the girl whose name I got in the stocking stuffer swap over on the Circle MB. It looks cuter in person... and would've looked a lot better had I held off on the stamp at the bottom and made the boy/snowman a little smaller. After an hour of trying, though, I gave up and glued it all together. Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tonight I decided I needed to mess around with my Imagine, so I made a few cute little Thanksgiving cut-outs. I thought they would be perfect on a tag so I made a couple for the other 2nd grade teachers at work. I had an adorable pumpkin pie stamp I used to give them a final touch. I had some Bath and Body Works hand sanitizer to wrap up, and tied the tags with green ribbon. I thought they turned out really cute.

A close up of the tags...

And here is a cooked turkey I made for fun. The images look really plain, but dressing them up with a little ink helps to give it a little more of a homemade feeling.

Don't mind the mess in the background. I'm working on about 50 projects at the moment.

For the Mothership

Believe it or not, this is my mom's birthday card this year. We (my sisters and I, along with my husband and some of Allison's friends) refer to her as "the Mothership" (don't even ask me how that got started!) so for her birthday Sunday I made her a card to reflect the affection. The inside had lots of catchy sayings, but I forgot to take a picture of it. (Think 'docking at your station' and 'lightyears older' lol). I used Everyday Paper Dolls for the UFO, Mini Monsters for the alien, and Birthday Bash for the words (though I cut off a butterfly). Enjoy! 

Link for Marker Contest

And although nobody looks here (it is for meeee, anyway) I'm going to post this amazing contest from one of the Circle girls: Contest Information. She suggested everyone who entered/had a blog to share the link, so, there it is! She does fantastic work and has a great blog to go to for inspiration!

I've got my fingers crossed Kymberlee wins because I think she mentioned wanting new markers one day!

Quick and Easy Vinyl Project

Today I was cleaning the kitchen (ha- that doesn't happen often!) and decided I really needed to fix the broken cup holding a plant (broken off from another one... apparently I break things a lot). So this was a random but super-easy project. Here is the broken cup. So sad.

Here is the new cup with vinyl... I used my gypsy to match the scrap of vinyl I had (around 3x5) and searched 'grow' on my G to find the beautiful design from Home Accents. It was a glorious reminder of why I buy so many cartridges... you never know when you'll need a particular image, so it's best to have them all!

And here is a picture of my newly re-potted plant. It was beautiful and healthy but this year the stinkbugs decided to hide under the leaves (It's facing the sun and they like warm, shady areas) and it's practically killed it.

And here is a picture with the vines lifted a little to get a better view.

Yay! Start to finish was less than 10 minutes!

Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley pictures in no particular order

Christmas Ornaments

This was something I meant to post the other day and never got around to it. My sister came over and we were hanging out and made these ornaments that turned out super cute.
This one is hers (you can tell by the pretty handwriting)

And here is another- that I loved

And this one I made (sorry the picture didn't rotate correctly)

Here are the rest of them, if you can see them. I apparently uploaded these pictures differently so the quality is off. Hmm... But anyway, you get the idea.

She took them with her, as I'm not really into stuff like that on my Christmas tree (I'm more of a coordinating-store-bought look kind of girl) but they're cute :-).

Awww, Love You! Imagine

I haven't made anything with my Imagine in awhile (since the crocodile on Kymberlee's card that I totally forgot to list as such), so tonight I made a little note for my Dear Husband who I haven't seen today. I wrote a little message at the bottom and left it on the counter so when he gets home he'll know that I thought about him. Such a sweetheart :-p. The picture's not that good, but it's cute in real life (and took like 5 seconds to put together- the Imagine does ALL the work!)

Pages for Baby Album

Here are a couple of pages I've been working on for my BFF in California's baby album. It's been really slow-going. It's been taking one or two sittings to get anything done (from picking out the paper to use, cutting a few things out with my cricut, designing how I want it... throwing it away and starting over) but it's slowly coming along. I've got a couple more pages that still need the pieces added. Oh well. Here is  one:

And the corresponding page:

Alright... 2 down, 18 to go!

Okay- one more post to make my stats look better for October ;-)

Just kidding. I haven't shown these yet, mainly because I kept thinking I could get a better picture, but it's just not happening. I wanted coordinating costumes (you know how I like to match stuff) but since they're different sizes and I waited until the last minute that didn't happen. Oh well.

My kids Halloween costumes this year:

Alex as a skeleton (which is perfect because he's solid black... and is really skinny at the back)

Sophie as a fairy (She floats around with the adorable wings)

I have a serious problem...

You know life is too busy when the only updates on your blogs are of stuff you've bought/received and nothing you've created with such merchandise.

It's not that I haven't been creating, though, it's just that I have taken pictures of the stuff I created. I have been crafty, I promise!

I assisted a friend in creating her own "Family Rules" poster which turned out adorable. She was making it as a Christmas gift for someone in her family, and the rules were that it had to be handmade... So I made the dog poster (Sept 18 post) and then walked her through the steps of what worked and didn't work for me. We ended up using vinyl for her letters (though I swore I wouldn't ever again) and it turned out really really cute. It was a really fun day! She had her gorgeous kids over and we ordered pizza and our husbands talked about guy stuff... Quite lovely, indeed.

I've also been working on a Baby Book for my BFF Whit. I started it using Nursery Tails Imagine cartridge, but then it seemed to girly (and she has the cutest little boy ever) so I scratched that idea (threw ALL of it in the trash) and bought some Animal Stack paper from ACMs and have started over. I've gotten 4/20 pages finished, so it'll be awhile. It's cute, though.

I also made a card for my BFF Kymberlee, but of course I forgot to take pictures so I had to wait until she received her package and took pictures for me :-) I thought it was cute. This was actually the paper that inspired the new Baby Book.

I love that sentiment. It's so true, in my profession! :-D

Shall We Dance?

I've been really looking forward to getting the new Circle-Exclusive cartridge even though I have no interest whatsoever in dancing or creating stuff about dance. I hope it will come in handy eventually, however... I know a few dancers and if I get desperate enough I might be able to pull out an old memory book and borrow a few pictures of when I was a little ballerina.

Imagine and Goodies!!!

A BIG shout-out to my BFF Kymberlee for sending me the most awesome package on Tuesday! I have had the craziest week and this is the first time I've gotten a chance to sit down since Sunday afternoon. I got my IMAGINE on Friday night, and have had the BEST time playing with it. But back to my Circle Pal...

Sooo here is my Imagine!! Exciting!! And HUGE!!

I LOVE it... You couldn't pry it from my cold, dead hands at this point!! It's amazing! Here it is sitting on my sewing table. I thought it would be a good fit, but honestly I wish I had a bigger table to set it on.

I have made several things with it already- here is an example of the wonderfulness. I love how I don't have to use so many sheets of different color papers for one small project. Here I made a pencil from Simply Charmed (thanks again, Kymberlee!!!). I don't have a picture of the finished project (took it to school- it's so cute!) but this is a perfect example of how amazing this machine is.

Dog Rules

I finally created a piece of artwork to cover the 4 ft. wall above my dog cages at the front door. I might go back and add their names in vinyl above their cages, but I thought this was a great start! A couple of my background papers are a little too "busy," I think, but in real life it doesn't look bad. They're all readable.

I started off with a 24x30 canvas, painted it black and glued on strips of paper that I had cut with scissors to give the ripped effect. I added a layer of mod podge, then used black vinyl and my trusty cricut (and oh-so-many fonts I can't even name them all!) to create the phrases. I added another couple of layers of mod podge and my creation was ready to hang! The original idea came from The Pleated Poppy. I don't have any kids or need for "family rules," but I do have the next best thing... my precious puppies, Sophie and Alex. *Sorry for the glare, it's the best I could get!

BTW: I think this is all GREAT advice!

Dog Rules
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride
Take naps and stretch before rising
Eat with enthusiasm, Stop when you've had enough
Never bark when a growl will do
Never pretend to be something you're not
Run, romp and play daily
When a loved one comes home always run to greet them
When it's in your best interest practice obedience
No matter how often you're scolded don't buy into the guilt thing and pout- run right back and make friends
Be loyal
Delight in the simple joy of a long walk

Happy Bird Day!

I finally made it to my sister's house tonight. While I was there I took a picture of the card I made her for her birthday that I forgot to take a picture of. I used 3 Birds on Parade. The inside says "Happy Bird-Day" (which matches my corny humor perfectly- I really couldn't believe they didn't have that expression on the cartridge.) She's supposed to take pictures of the finished book (which she absolutely loved, btw)

Peacock Card

I made this card yesterday using French Manor (I seriously love that cartridge- it's worth my price into the Circle if nothing else!) for my mom to give to a co-worker moving to a new job. The peacock feathers are actually a patterned paper with glitter- you can't see that in the picture. I'm not good with sentiments so I left it blank. I did ink the edges around the inside so it would be cute, and I added 3 pearls on the envelope, along with a diamond shaped tag with pearls (didn't take a picture of that one, though). I think it turned out okay. I didn't like it at first, but it's starting to grow on me. Blues and browns look gorgeous together, I think! The paper is DCWV cardstock from the "At Home" stack. 

And the inside

A's Birthday Banner

Here is my next Pooh Font project for my bff's daughter's 1st Birthday next weekend. I used the same paper (sent to me by my bff Kymberlee) along with black cardstock. I used the cheap walmart ribbon. There is so much action going on in the patterned paper, everything else is pretty simple. I started to add more (IMO more=better) but I know a lot of people prefer simple, so I kept it that way.

I hung it on my kitchen cabinet thing to show, but I've got grommets and ribbon on the ends so she'll be able to tie or hang it up when the time comes (or use packaging tape, like I did!) :-)

Addy's First Birthday!

I'm helping my bff Caty get ready to celebrate her daughter's very first birthday in a couple of weeks, so I made some Winnie-the-Pooh invites to send out her for her party. I tried the traditional colors and wasn't happy with how they turned out, so I decided to give it a go using my style! The poohbear was white paper I inked (if you can call using a cotton ball and yellow stamp pad inking) and the patterned paper came from a party-themed set that my bf(online)f (and Circle Pal) Kymberlee sent me. I've still got a ton of it left to make more cool stuff- I absolutely love it! Anyway, I know black cardstock is a weird background for a girl's birthday card, but I thought it turned out really great. I used gold bling on the candle and stickles on the icing. The cake came from Stretch Your Imagination.

Here is what the insides look like (without the black boxes, of course):

And a sample of the variety:

I also made an adorable card for my bff Whitney all the way across the country, but I totally forgot to take a picture of it! And I had a picture of the goodies that Kymberlee sent me (A PINK ATG GUN!) in addition to the cute paper, but the camera on my brand-new phone was broken so it apparently didn't actually 'take.' The good news is that Verizon sent me a new Droid X today and the camera works!! Oh oh oh I also got Straight from the Nest in the mail yesterday from Cricut Rewards (I got that, two lanyards and a pack of mats for the totally amazing price of free... with only 11 bucks shipping!)