Super adorable mini books

Good morning friends! I wanted to show you the mini books I just finished for my two nieces. My brother and sister in law adopted our dear Kate almost exactly 8 years ago. It took them about 2 years from start to finish because they adopted her from China, she was almost 1 when she finally became part of our family. Now this past Christmas they began the process to adopt another daughter, Morgan. She is 11 and from a town local to where they all live. I wanted a special way to welcome Morgan to the family and celebrate the deep friendship she and Kate have already begun. I guess they are inseparable and so silly!

 So these are the two different covers to the books. I made the books identical except for the tags on the cover and throughout them. Most of the pattern paper was from Cosmo Cricket Mini Deck called DeLovely. I got two of these mini decks and I adore them! The paper was just great for cutting with. The solids were some left overs from a Basic Grey Urban Prairie stack I had and my usual Core'dinations paper I always have on hand. For the girl's names I took some iridescent white paper I had from Hobby Lobby and went to town on it with my alcohol inks. I just love how they turned out, they are so much prettier in person! I used Gypsy Font to weld their names together, it such a great font for welding! The green paper was punched with a Martha Stewart punch around the page set.

 Forever title on this page is from Gypsy Wanderings and embellished with my stickles and a rhinestone of course! The daisy border is from Paper Doll Dress Up. I know you can't tell in this picture but I completely covered this border with white glitter and then added I-Rock jewels to the center of each flower. Crocheted flower was from a stash I've had for years. The center is a basic brad that I glittered. Throughout the books I added double sided blank tags for the girls to write on.

 This set of pages is because both girls love music, especially playing the piano and keyboard. Music notes are from Gypsy Wanderings. Again I glittered parts of the notes so they would really stand out.

 These pages are in honor of Kate and her chickens. She adores them and they are her pets. Apparently she sits and visits with them quite a bit and now Morgan has joined in on that fun too!

 I made the word sweet using Alphalicious and glittered the S just for fun. I think the little chick turned out so sweet, couldn't you just hug her? She's from Create A Critter. Her wings are glittered and her beak and legs were cut with the Core'dinations glittered cardstock-that stuff is so fantastic and easy to cut! Of course Chickie's eyes are more rhinestones.

 This set I decided to just make glittery and girly. Ribbon is some I picked up from Walmart, it is so pretty! Of course I added rhinestones to the ribbon and picture mats. I also stickled the edges of the paper flowers for some extra sparkle. One can never have enough sparkle I say!

 Kate and Morgan both love horses so this is in honor of that love. What young girls wouldn't want a pink sparkle pony? I stickled the mane, tail and hooves of the horse and glittered her bandanna. This horse is from Create A Critter, isn't she FAB?! All the cuts and embellishments in these books are strategically pop dotted so the girls can attach their pictures with out having to remove anything.

 And finally, the back cover...so exciting isn't it?! This was also the first project I made using my new Cinch. It worked like a dream and I am so excited to have a different way to bind my fun little projects now.

I hope you all have a very blessed day!

Bacon and Eggs Card

My daughter wanted me to make a funny Valentine to give her new boyfriend, I agreed, of course! He LOVES bacon and eats it every chance he gets (I know, not too healthy!) so we decided to do this...

Yes, I know roosters don't lay eggs! Isn't it the funniest card ever? I've been giggling all afternoon! I welded the words together on Chloe and used the front from Printing Press (I think!) The pig, rooster and eggs are from From My Kitchen, hearts and cloud are from Create A Critter. I think this is my favorite card ever! Oh and by the way it is a whopping 10 x 10 inches! Here's the inside...

It's pretty plain but I love the fried egg. I made the egg by using a cloud from Create A Critter and an oval from George.

 I hope this gives you the giggles too!

Banana Split Cat

After Halloween this year I went to Target for the sole purpose of finding my kitty a fun "outfit." Yes, once again, I know I'm crazy! He has a cute little Santa suit, but he is much too large for it now. Perry likes this one much better because there is no hat involved. He actually tolerates this costume pretty well for a crazy kitty like himself. I finally just got around to scrapping these pictures, I thought they were so funny so I just had to share...

The title was cut using Nifty Fifties, welding on Chloe. Banana split was created using the banana from Create A Critter, ice cream was from Indy Art (ice cream cone.) Hot fudge sauce was the drippy topping on the Christmas Pudding from Winter Frolic, and the cherry was from Create A Critter.  I embossed the words with the Tiny Mosaic folder, banana was Wood grain folder, ice cream scoops were Polka Dots folder, hot fudge was Divine Swirls and finally the cherry was embossed with Swiss Dots folder. Of course then I stickled the hot fudge sauce and the cherry.

This was the first thing I made with my Nifty Fifties cartridge when it arrived last month.  I embossed the words with the Polka Dots folder once again. I know these pages are pretty simple, but I didn't want to distract from the silly Perry pictures, he does think he's pretty cool AND the top banana around here. As you can see he has a love for laying on storage totes. I just started labeling all my Christmas tote boxes with vinyl, it's so much fun!

Hope you have a day filled with laughter!

One Cool Guy

I followed directions from Capadia's blog for the easel card and tweaked it to fit what I wanted to do. I didn't worry about making this card a standard size because I didn't need to mail it. The penguin and background for the 50 are from Create A Critter. The 50 and "one cool guy" were made in Design Studio with the font from Robotz. I actually reverse cut the words and put a lighter piece of card stock behind them.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Sand on a Layout???

This is a layout I did recently from a short business trip to Florida. I decided to cover my little sand castle with some sand a dear friend brought me back from Hawaii years ago (yes, I'm crazy for hauling this sand around with me all these years, but look it paid off!) I tried cutting the sand castle from sand paper first. That worked ok, although it messed up my Cricut blade. The sand paper just lacked that certain something I was looking for. After I cut the sand castle out of a light brown I ran it through my Xyron upside down and then sprinkled my sand over it, Ta-Da! A sand castle! I also had just recently purchased some little glass like adhesive tiles from Michael's, they were the finishing touch I think. The word Florida was cut with Lyrical Letters and welded in Design Studio. The other cuts on these pages were made with Create a Critter. I also covered the little red crab with Tim Holtz Fried Brick Distressed Embossing Power. He's now rough and bumpy.

Hope you have a great weekend!

How Does a Cloud Become Dirt???

Happy Friday everyone!!! I for one, am glad the week is almost over, it's been crazy and HOT here! Here's a layout I did recently showing the before and after when we put rock into our flower beds. While I was making this I knew I really wanted a mound of dirt or rocks. Now do you think there will actually be a Cricut cut for that? Noooo! Well for a brief moment I had a revelation, I decided to use a fluffy cloud for my dirt. It worked so beautifully and I was excited! This was also my first layout I used my sewing machine on as well. I just did a regular straight stitch around the edge of both background papers. I really like how this layout turned out.

The Tree and bird are from Cindy Loo. The wheelbarrow and shovel are from Handy Man Lite, I welded the words using Robotz in Design Studio, and the dirt is a cloud from Create a Critter.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Happy Sunday

I am so glad last week is over and we are on to a new week! Thankfully my daughter is done with college for a couple of months, maybe now I can use my car more often! Here are some pictures from the projects I worked on this past week...
 This first one is a set of "just because" cards I made to send a dear friend who adores pandas...

this is a birthday card for my Sister-in-law. I decided to try something new by using the flower vine border...

and finally, here's a little fishing sign I made to go on a layout, I really like how the inking turned out...

There is more information about the cartridges used on these projects and others in our Gallery.
Thankfully the two people I'm sending the cards to don't know about our blog yet, so they won't see these yet!
I Hope everyone has a great week! It's Provocraft's "Hello Thursday" this week, so I'll be back later in the week with all the new releases.