Sweet Tweet Cards

I was working on some cards for friends and wanted to share them with you. The first one was a mistake that turned into a great little card. 

 I used the Cricut Cartridge "3 Birds on Parade," for the adorable little bird with umbrella. I free hand cut the clouds and rain drops. The card was pre-decorated card stock so it came with the colored squares and stars.  I wondered how I would incorporate the stars into the theme and that's when I found this stamp in my collection.

Doesn't that just go perfect with the design on the front of the card? Sometimes you just get lucky.



This next card I did for a dear friend that just had a beautiful baby boy.

Again I used "3 Birds on Parade" for the little baby bird. I cut the letters for the word sweet but I found a letter stamps to make the words tweet, tweet.


I like what I did with the ribbon too. I took a plain green ribbon but I spread Stickles glitter on it and let it dry. It really makes the ribbon sparkle.  If you haven't tried Stickles glitters, you need too. When I first bought them, I thought they were no different than the regular crafting glitter glue but I was wrong. The glitter is much more finer so you get more glitter bang!



Ignore the blue gob in front of each card that looks like chewed gum. It's really blue sticky tact because I couldn't find my card stand.

4th of July

Oh My GOSH! It's been over a month since I posted last. Where did the time go and what is my excuse for not posting? I'm trying to think one up but can't.

I had some fun making 4th of July decorations. I like to associate rossettes with the 4th for some reason so I had to do some decorations that included those.

Here is a link on how to make the rosettes: Paper Rosettes

I used my Cricut to cut the star out in the middle but you can download a picture off the internet and just cut it out by hand. It's best to use white or beige card stock because you're going to hot glue gun it to the rosette. I got the vintage flag picture out of a pad of card stock but you can go on line and find vintage pictures to use.

Here is a site that I just found: Vintage 4th of July rosette and pictures

Print the pictures off on a color printer or cut them out of a magazine and then use Mod Podge on it to give it an even more vintage look.

Finally add any embellishments that you like and hang it up!

Here is a half rosette decoration I made.

I put hubby to work helping decorate the edges because he said making crafts is easy. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes it's not. Inking edges, at least this time, w easy.

Look what I found on clearance at Hobby Lobby!

I found lots of uses for these fancy prismatic stars. I used them on the half rosette above and I also glued two back to back with a toothpick in the middle and made a great festive cupcake topper. I made cupcakes and used them but forgot to take pictures before they were gone.  All the neighbor children came running when they found out I had them - the cupcakes I mean.

The last fun 4th of July thing I made I found off of Martha Stewart's website. They are paper fireworks/rockets filled with candy. The kids had a blast pulling the flame part and grabbing up their candy.

I got the directions and the print out for the paper from a link a Martha Stewart email. I have looked and looked and cannot find the link. If anyone finds the link, please send it to me so I can add it to this post because if anyone has kids, they are going to want to do this.

Last Day of School Teacher's Gifts

I wanted to come up with something different to hand out to the teachers on the last day of school to say thank you and I found it at SVGCuts.com. They have these adorable SVG spring birdhouse files to cut out using your Cricut and the one I choose I thought was perfect to say thank you to the teachers and staff.

I also made little tags to attach and filled the bird houses with jelly beans and chocolates.  Yum!

If you look at the middle of the flowers on the gift tags you'll notice a metallic yellow dot. I saw where someone on another blog used this metallic puffy paint to accent the middle of her flowers and while I was out shopping at Michaels last week I found some. The kind I found is called Liquid Pearls by Ranger. It's a dimensional pearlescent paint. There are three different colors to a pack and it costs about $6.99 but remember to use a coupon and save some money. : )

Diaper Cake

I hosted a baby shower for a good friend a few weeks back. The first thing I did was the jungle themed pinata and then I made my first diaper cake. I searched the web for videos on how to make one and found most people make it the same way but add their special little touches at the end.

I followed along with the pack and used size 1 diapers which I rolled and placed around a baby bottle. I filled the baby bottle with some goodies for the mommy to be.

There were three layers of diapers on the bottom, two layers of diapers in the middle and two layers on top. I used three rolled diapers in the middle on the top layer and then put the rest of the diapers around that.

You can see I used a rubber band to hold each section together. I also rolled baby bibs and baby wash clothes around some of the diapers. 

Finally, I found this adorable monkey head on a dowel at the Dollar Tree and decided to paint the little fellow and use him for my cake topper.

I also found monkey themed ribbon at Michaels. I found one roll of ribbon will do a whole cake. By the way, I used double sided tape to stick my ribbon together instead of tying a bow. I then used my Critcut Expression and Cricut cartridge: Paisley to make three little monkeys. Each monkey represented one of the two children my friend has now and the one on the way.

Since I was on a monkey roll, I found another SVG file monkey and had him hanging on the wall to show guests where to put their gifts. I used an SVG file from SVGCuts to make the little treat box he's holding. I then made more of the treat boxes which I filled with goodies for each guest. I made a monkey themed shadow box using various SVG cuts I found on line and my own imagination.

Monkey Pinata

Today I'm going to show you how I took a pumpkin pinata I bought on clearance at Halloween and turned it into a "monkey with jungle theme" pinata.

I am doing this for a friend's baby shower that I am hosting. Her nursery theme is monkeys so I'm trying to bring that theme through for the baby shower. I had this pinata lying around and was going to get rid of it when it hit me that I could do something fun for the shower so that the children have something special for them to do. Yes, there will be lots of children there.

 I first had the fun task of peeling off the Halloween face and patching a few white areas where the tissue paper pulled off too.

I then used my Cricut and the cartridge titled: Birthday Bash. It turned out that the little monkey from this cartridge is getting ready to hit a pinata so it was more than perfect. 

I cut him out at 7 inches and after piecing him together I moved on to the vines. I colored the bat using markings so I could give it some detail.

I needed a jungle leaf and didn't have any on my cartridges so I went searching on the web and found this perfect jungle leaf. The only problem was that the svg file couldn't be found so I used my snipit program (comes with the latest Windows) and then saved it as a jpg and then used my Cricut and Sure Cuts A Lot program to make a mat full,

 

Once I had my leaves cut out, I took a paper bag, cut it in strips and first crinkled the strips and then twisted them to make vines.

When I was done with all this, it was time to glue. I started with craft glue but went to a hot glue gun and in the end I had my jungle themed pinata which now I get to fill and hang for display and fun!

Mother's Day Tea

Last year I put together a Mother/Daughter Tea Party for my friends and it was such a success that I decided to do it again this year but this time I changed it to just a Mother's Day Tea so friends and family with boys could also enjoy. It takes a few months to organize and put together but I have fun doing it. I collected a donation from each mom that will go to the charity Youth On Their Own. I made most of the decorations and even wrote a little story to read to the moms.

Our theme was Purses and moms were asked to bring a purse with a story to share. We had some special purse stories. One mom brought a locket in the shape of a purse. Her grandmother had given it to her and when her daughter had her first haircut, the mom put a lock of her hair in the locket.

     Here is the story I wrote and read: "The Ages and Stages of Purses"
Let's take a trip down memory lane when we were a little girl the age of our little girls now and when you wanted a purse like mommy's.
     Mommy got you the purse and you were so proud that you showed it to everyone and took it everywhere. The things you carried in that purse were simple but used for your entertainment on long car rides or during Sunday's church service. The things that you had in your purse where things such as markers, pencils, scraps of paper to draw on, books, small toys and even tiny stuffed animals.
      Then came the teens years and it wasn't cool to carry a purse so you used your pockets for such things as lip gloss, a lunch ticket, cell phone (if they were around then) and maybe a crumbled up letter from a boy.
     As high school and college came along so did carrying a purse again but it had to be a new type of cool and be a designer purse such as Fossil purses today. It had to be stylish and small - just the right size to carry your school ID and eventually a driver's license and maybe a credit card plus lip stick and mascara, a cell phone (for calling all your friends to talk about nothing but something or today to text about nothing but something), some eye shadow (You were young and you had to look good.), and monthly womanly things that you were totally embarrassed about even though every other girl your age was going through the same thing.
      Then came love, marriage and children. Now the stylish purse was traded in for a diaper bag full of everything a baby needs and more: diapers, wipes, baby bottles, snacks, your cell phone in case the car breaks down, and your wallet with ID.
     After the diaper bag stage, you get to carry a purse again. But now it's not all about style, it's all about size. Your purse is big and convenient and is filled with tissues for runny noses, hand sanitizer, lipstick and a comb for when you've taken too long to get the kids ready and don't have time for yourself, a cellphone (but now to make doctor's appointments or to know when to pick Suzie up from soccer), the crumbled up letters from boys are replaced with receipts from McDonalds and fruit snack wrappers but it's at that time in your life that your daughter looks inside your purse and is so fascinated with it's content and dark mysteries of zipped up pockets that she says, "Mommy can I have a purse of my own?"

Here a pictures of some of the crafts and decorations I made for the party:

I found this jpeg on line and converted it to a SVG to use with my SCAL.

I put a circle in the middle and then put a backing on them and magnets and I got the cutest fridge magnets for the kids to decorate.

I used gold embossing powder for the Love you. on the frames.

I also made these little purses as gifts for each mother. I filled them with candy and a Mother's Day pin.

I also had a drawing for other gifts I made and each mother received a rose before she left which her child/children presented to her.

I am already thinking ahead to next year's Mother's Day Tea and think my theme will be shoes?

My daughter made me breakfast: peanut butter and strawberry jam with banana sandwich.

Happy Mother's Day to every woman because even if you have never given physical birth you have probably touched someone's life in a positive way and that is what being a mother is all about.