Down on the Farm

I have finished this adorable farm and barnyard themed birthday decor for a little boy's first birthday. This is my second banner and it went much quicker than the first time and I LOVE the way it came out. I had all sorts if visions in my head and they truly came together. I love the rope letters on the Old West cartridge and it was the perfect touch to this birthday banner. I found the bandana paper at the M craft store. I usually use plastic pails for my centerpieces but I changed this one up a bit and used the galvanized pail which was just the right touch for this project.

I never get tired of doing these projects! Hope everyone has a Happy New Year.

As a final note, my Provocraft Ultimate Creative Series arrived just in time for Christmas and I must say it is a wonderful product and I cannot wait to review all the differnt tutitorals and projects this kit has to offer. I am honored to have my Welcome Home Solidier centerpiece featured in this product on the papercrafting DVD so if you have a Cricut and need inspiration, this product is so worth the money and it comes with a 700-image cartridge that has six keypad overlays!!! PLUS a free Cricut personal cutter....if you want more details, feel free to leave me a message and I will get back to you

One week to Christmas

And I still have lots to do! I almost forgot to do any shopping but thank goodness my kids are grown and don't need much, just the joy of spending time together as a family and maybe a trip to Disney or two while they are home. My youngest son made it home yesterday and my oldest son is coming home tomorrow for his leave from the Army. Sadly my older daughter will not be making it home from Alaska as she does not have leave available this year. She is also in the Army and even though its hard on her and us and we miss her terribly, we so very proud of her accomplishments and sacrifices to our country and our freedom.

In the meantime, I have had lots of orders to fill and several more to go....here are a couple that got done this week. Working on my nieces wedding shower favors and decorations and have 3 Sesame Street centerpieces to do for a party late January and also a set of wedding invitations but that isn't until February. Seems like the orders just keep coming in steady and for that I am thankful and blessed to be able to make a few dollars doing something I so enjoy!

So here might be my last post before Christmas so I want to wish all my followers a very Merry Christmas and a Safe and Happy New Year

New Provocraft product and I am a part of it!!

I am so very excited to share that over the past many months I have been participating in a new product line by Provocraft. I was one of several finalists chosen to include one of my Cricut papercrafting projects in their new DVD instructional series illustrating different ways to use the Cricut demonstrated by some very popular creative coaches in the industry. The DVD series has 10 different videos in total as well as an exclusive cartridge that includes all the design elements needed to create all the projects on the DVD series. My project is featured on the DVD that demonstrates ways to use your cricut for creating gift giving projects.

What an honor it was to be chosen from hundreds of entries to participate in this project and then out of 50 finalists to actually be one of the few that made the final production and filming to be included in the project! Well as you can imagine, I ordered the DVD series for myself and to my surprise, they are giving a limited number of personal Cricut machines with the order to those who call.

If you are interested in seeing the informercial for this product there is one more opportunity to view it at 6:30 AM tomorrow morning (12/9) on the DIY network (or set your DVR to record it like I did!!). I CAN PROMISE YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED!! This DVD collection will not be available in stores and can only be purchased by calling Provocraft at 1-800-688-6981.

Thanks for letting me share my five minutes of fame with you all! I ordered the DVD series as I see such potential in it being a productive tool in my papercrafting workshops that I have monthly at my home. I cannot wait to share these projects with my crafting ladies!!

UPDATE: I just found out that you can get all the info on the DVD series, see the gallery of projects, and order the bundle as well as see clips from the informercial at this website:

www.4cricutdvd.com

Purse workshop today!

This month's workshop we made the purse gift boxes and post-it note "compacts" with "lipstick" pens. I had 12 ladies over today for this project and they did such a great job! They were so creative in embellishing their projects I had to share the pictures!! What a great afternoon we had!!

Baby shower banner

I have continued the decorations for my friend's baby shower which is this Saturday. I did 3 centerpieces in the zoo animals theme all together and then the banner. I LOVE THE BANNER!! It is so stinkin' cute....This is my first banner so I am very proud of it! I then realized that my banner qualified me for the current challenge at FCCB...use the color green and a circle....the scallop circles hanging from the pennants spell out welcome. The green is in the jungle patterned paper from Stampin Up that is behind the zoo animals in the banner. I may be stretching it but hey whatever works right? LOL.

Zoo animals centerpiece

Yesterday I worked on this centerpiece for a friend's baby shower. She is doing zoo animals as her baby room theme so this will be perfect for the shower in a couple of weeks plus it will go nicely in the baby's room afterwards. The animals are from the Animal Kingdom cartridge. I love that cartridge and have already used it many time for barn animals, zoo animals and others.

Busy, busy, busy weekend!!

I had a lot of projects to work on this weekend. Just finished at 9:15 Sunday evening and now a few minutes of R&R before the busy week of work....

Here are the projects that kept me busy!! (Minnie Mouse is an old picture, forgot to take a picture of the new one but it was exactly the same!!)

Sports themed project!

Emma at My Creative Time has a sports project challenge this week. I created one of my famous centerpiece party bouquets with a cheerleading theme for Oklahoma State. This centerpiece is being used at tailgate parties at OS...GO POKES!!

Another gift box purse

Today I made another of the gift box purses to take to my sister this week when we go to visit. She loves purple!
This was the easiest purse so far because I have perfected the technique some...first of all instead of cutting and measuring I made a template for the purse shape out of chip board and just traced it.
Second, I found a sizzix dye to use for the "pocket" on the front of purse so I don't have to measure, cut, score, and assemble my own version and I love it because it puts all the scores and cuts in one step Great when I am ready to mass produce some of these.
And finally, I bought a score board. Never thought I needed this tool but my goodness it is wonderful. I have already made envelopes on it and now I was able to score my box for the purse middle in seconds! All you do is cut your cardstock to size and score the sides at the correct dimensions in one swipe of the bone folder!! The sunglasses pattern and the tag came from Forever Young Cricut Cartridge...The pattterned paper and cardstock are Stampin Up.

Vinyl craziness

I got carried away with vinyl projects last night! Actually they were on my to-do list and now I can cross them off but when I started, I just couldn't stop...hey as long as the deep cutting blade was in the machine right?

Anyway, I haved posted the keys of my front door before but I finally got the grey/silver vinyl to do the keyholes for teh opposite windows and I love the final effect. It makes for such a decorative entry way to our home.

I also got my pumpkins vinyl'd. I have had these pumpkins for a few years and put them on the porch but after getting hooked on my cricut and vinyl, I decided to dress these fellas up a bit this year. We have a new front porch this year, a park bench by the front door, and a railing so I can't wait to get festive out there!!

My Husband's work

Today I wanted to share some of my husband's work with his cricut cake! We are trying to coordinate projects and have available complete party decorating packages. So far we have coordinated Olivia the Pig, Sesame Street, and Minnie Mouse. He is a pastry chef so his work is phenomenal. I love what he has come up with and could't wait to share! I do the banners, invitations, and centerpices and he does the cake/cupcake toppers!

From Halloween to Christmas...I am all over the place!

Well that is because next weekend is my next workshop with my crafting pals! I cannot wait and in October and November we will be working on Christmas cards and projects. These are the 3 cards I came up with for next weekend. I love Christmas colors as much as fall colors which reminds me...In a little over a week and a half we will be taking a vacation to Tennessee to see some beautiful fall color! You would understand what a big deal that is for us when I tell you I live in Florida and we get nothing! Yes we get the sunshine year round but you still miss the beautiful changes in seasons. I think its been well over 20 years since I have seen a real fall so we are going to Pigeon Forge, have a beautiful cabin rented and CANNOT WAIT!

But first, I am going to have fun making these cards with the girls!!

Halloween cupcake toppers

Today I made cupcake toppers/picks to match my centerpieces. These were made with my SU punches though and are SO EASY to make. I love the colors of fall!!

Halloween party centerpieces

Its been a while since I have blogged. I have been so busy keeping up with my Etsy Store orders (not a bad thing!) I have not had time to create anything new but yesterday Kelley and I did get to a Halloween themed project. So excited about these mini centerpieces. I found the tin pails for $1 each. They are 4" tall and perfect to put in a few of the kids from Paperdoll Dressup in their halloween costumes. I added some Martha glitter to make them sparkle and the vinyl on the pails from the Pumpkin carving seasonal cartridge!