Easter Treats

Annie's brand in the natural foods section just happens to sell bunny shaped graham crackers year round and thought they would be a less sugary gift than the usual Easter candy. I put them in snack sized baggies so I could get about 8 small gifts out of one box of crackers. Then I stapled card stock to the top of the bag and added a stamp and the name.

Modge Podge

Looking for tips on Modge Podge - I have several projects I want to try and I have never done this. Anyone have any good ideas?

Boxes

I used the Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More cricut cartridge to make different colored boxes for each player in on ongoing weekly game to keep our cards separate and tidy. The crayon box would have worked great for this as well, but there wasn't as much room to expand.

Calendars

I borrowed the idea for these from here. I liked this idea because you can vary it to use whatever you already have in your collective stash, and the sizing is perfect to get 4 calendars from an 8-1/2 x 11 piece of cardstock. I bought the plastic holders at an office supply store for barely over a dollar. The calendar I printed at home from my computer. I will post the rest of the months as soon as they are done! Don't throw them away, please, since they can be reused in the year 2015. :) Or maybe I will just send updated months for next year and you can cover up the old dates.

I made these gifts for Christmas. The tile is for Nathaniel's teacher and the other is for my mom. I had a lot of fun with the vinyl crafts and with using my cricut during this holiday season. However, the thing that makes it all simplified is the design software. Every craft has been easier since I started using that.

Chirstmas Ornaments

These are the ornaments I made for my ornament exchange at work. I put the person's initial on one side and a snowflake on the other. I could not imagine doing this without the cricut. I just pretty much followed the instructions here and added some fine glitter and beads on the inside when I was done. Using the glass etching cream was very simple. My biggest obstacle was trying to smooth the vinyl on slightly rounded surface, even though I used scissors to cut lines for it to overlap a bit. Some sites said they were able to reuse the vinyl a couple times, but I could only use it once, mostly since it was not flat and and water got on the sticky part in some places when I rinsed it off.

Young Women Tiles

I am currently making 20 of the above tiles (with different names of course). This has been a big project but a very fun and educational project. Some of the things I have done/learned are 1) for each side I have had to adjust the size with the cricut design software (the software is a have to have item - love it!) and I also centered each line so that I could save time with the transfer process. 2) After cutting out each of the edge pieces and each name I cut them into strips and peeled off the vinyl that surrounded the words. This way the words stay lined up and spaced the way I want them to be. Then I just apply the transfer paper over the top of the vinyl and transfer it to the tiles. 3) I used 3 different cartridges to cut from and I found that it was not a huge inconvenience to switch the cartridges out because the computer is telling the cricut what to cut, it just verifies that you own the cartridges when you first tell it to cut and then doesn't really use them. I didn't have to reinsert them when I cut the same page over and over again. I would never spend the money for the jukebox that they sell. It just isn't worth the price.

Removing Vinyl

Donette asked the question "can you remove vinyl from the wall if you put it on?" I have looked it up online and the answer is yes. If you can get an end peeled up it usually just pulls off. If not, you can use a hair dryer to heat up the vinyl and this will make the sticky part loosen up. This makes it easier to remove. However, once you adhere it to a surface, removing it makes that vinyl no longer usable mostly because it doesn't stick as well. Hope this helps.

Wall Words

I have been wanting to decorate the party room a little more to add some life to the room. In trying to decide what to do I came up with the following quote to put above my clock. (I thought of this saying on my own so is it really a quote?) Doing the vinyl on the wall was challenging at first but then I figured out what worked. For me, having each word on separate transfer papers worked best. This is partly because I wasn't sure where I wanted the words on the wall. It was also easier to adjust and get the words straight when I could adjust each word separately.

Halloween card for Mrs. Walker

Taylor wanted me to make a Halloween card for his 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Walker. So, I did, and here is how it turned out. Nothing to fancy, only took about 10 minutes to whip up.

Just thought I would share. My girlfriend and I also made name embellished spooky bookmarks for all the kids in the class. Those are already bagged up and ready to go for the party on Friday, or I would share those too.


Happy Halloween crafting to everyone!

Links to Cool Vinyl Ideas

10 Little Monkeys:
http://www.cricut.com/messageboard/tm.aspx?m=3083787

Overlaying two different fonts:
http://www.cricut.com/messageboard/tm.aspx?m=2934825

Organizing those stickers

I think I have finally found a great way to organize my sticker collection. It all came about when I was trying to figure out where to put all the wonderful Disney stickers we have been given since our trip. Before I had all my stickers in binders with sheet protectors. The problem with this was that I had two overflowing binders and then I had to look through each binder every time I wanted to work on a scrapbooking page. One of the problems I had was that the stickers weren't put together by subject but rather by where they fit best in the sheet protectors. So, I decided to try a new system. I used 1-2 sheet protectors for each subject and just put all the stickers in the sheet protectors with out worrying about whether you could see them all or not. I found that didn't matter anyway because I usually wanted several to choose from and always pulled out more than I really needed every time. If I used more than one sheet protector I stapled them together so that I would be able to pull them out at the same time. This new system allowed me to just get rid of the binders because now I can just go through the bin and pull out the sheet protectors containing the stickers that go along with the pictures I am currently scrapbooking and I don't have to haul out two binders for just a couple pages.

Leftover Letters

I thought this card idea could be helpful to use up letters of the alphabet that you have left and can't spell anything out of them. You could use "C"s for Celebrate, and "F" for Fabulous, and so on to use up letters that aren't in Happy Birthday. Here I used only two metal circles, mostly because I didn't have room to spell it out with that large of embellishment. If you don't want to hand-write in the rest, use a computer font or small letter stickers.

Gift Can

Any Cricut cartridge that you can put the object in a circle makes decorating the top of these paint cans super easy. Just measure the diameter of the lid and that is the height setting you will need for cutting. Gift cans could hold more than just calories and be just as sweet - any small gift like stickers, a pair of earrings, chap stick, or mini bottle of lotion is a fun surprise.

Cute as a Button Cupcakes

First of all, I did not make these. However, they are SO cute with the little buttons on them. The one on the top right has plastic diaper pins on it and a large plastic button. These are jumbo sized cupcakes - otherwise the plastic blocks would be the same size as the cupcake. My co-worker who made these was also up all night putting on these cute little buttons and making each one different.

Diaper Cake

This is not a very elaborate one, but I wanted everyone to know that they're actually pretty quick and easy to make. I just watched a video on how to make it on utube and it probably took less time than to make a real cake, even though it was my first one. It's a great decoration and a nice gift all in one.

Advice Book

Create an accordion photo album and add a few pictures of the baby shower. Have each guest write a piece of advice for the first time mother on a triangle of vellum and glue those in to create great memory of that day.

Name Tiles

I used my Cricut to cut out vinyl letters to spell out a name and put a letter on each tile. Then I put a ribbon on each tile so they can be hung on the wall. This makes an excellent baby shower gift because it won't be outgrown in 3-6 months. These pretty little tiles will run you $2+ each at Home Depot. Hope you don't have to spell out a long name or go for the cheaper ones.