Canvas Project and a Recipe Box

Happy Tuesday! Today I am going to share with you two different gifts that I made for my sister-in-laws. I love making hand-made gifts for family and friends. It’s just so much more special.

The first one is for my sister-in-law who used to be a nun. Yes, a nun! And, no, my brother had nothing to do with her leaving, LOL! She entered the convent at the age of 13 and stayed for over 10 years until she just felt it wasn’t for her anymore. She has now been married for almost 40 years and has two wonderful kids (well, not kids anymore and I am a little biased, LOL!). So I made an altered canvas for her called ‘Devine Intervention’.

I wanted to show that no matter which path we take in life we all end up exactly where we are supposed to be.

I inked the sides of the canvas and then covered it with paper from My Mind’s Eye (Love that paper!), added my photos, some rub ons, metal, letter stickers, a laser cut rosary,

and the word ‘Devine’ that I cut out by hand with my Cutter Bee blade.

I know that we all love our Cricuts and the many wonderful fonts that it can cut but if you ever want to cut a word from a favorite computer font here’s what to do in your word document:

1. Type out your word in the font and size that you want
2. Go to Format>Font>Effects and click Outline

Now that you have your word in Outline it’s time to print.

1. In your Printer dialog box click Properties and look for a checkbox or dropdown box that mentions “T-shirt”, “T-shirt Transfer”, “Mirror”, or “Mirror Image” (remember that each printer software is different)
2. Print on the back or wrong side of your cardstock or paper
3. After printing, use a sharp blade (x-acto, etc) and a cutting mat to cut out your word (although I love my glass mat much better for this – the blade just glides over it). Printing and cutting the word out from the back means you don’t have to be so precise  - if you mess up a little, no one will notice!

Yea, it sounds like a lot of work but sometimes you just have to have that certain font that goes just right with your layout! Now you can!

The other gift that I made was for my SIL who loves to cook. So I made an altered lunch box for her recipes.

The paper that I used was from one of those stacks that I’ve had a while and now I don’t remember the name of the company (if you recognize it please leave a comment!). I also used some Prima flowers, some chipboard, and lots of ribbons.

Thanks so much for looking! Until next time Happy Crafting!

Project using Vinyl & Glass Etching

Happy Monday Crafters! I hope everyone’s weekend was a good one. I want to thank all of you for visiting my little blog and leaving such wonderful comments. Yes, I read each and every one of them and they all have been incredibly kind and I promise that I will try to always keep this blog updated and fresh!

Now for today’s project. I wanted to play with the glass etching cream that I bought awhile back but never used. I used my Provo Craft vinyl to cut out my initial with my Cricut Expression and the Storybook cartridge. I set my pressure to 3 and my blade depth to 2. You only want to cut the vinyl and not the paper backing.

Sorry about some of the photos – it’s very hard to photograph glass! I used the positive A and placed it on this simple glass vase. Then I took the negative part of the vinyl and centered it on another glass vase, taping off the top, bottom, and sides with painters tape. I used a foam brush to smooth on the etching cream and left it one for about 5 minutes. When the time was up I rinsed off the cream and took off the tape and vinyl. This is the result:

It came out so much better than I expected! And so easy to do. I can see making things like this for the home, for wedding gifts – the possibilities are endless!

The vases were bought at Michael’s on sale for $2.50 each! Not a bad deal. I also bought the etching cream at Mike’s with a coupon so it was about 8 dollars. But a little goes a long way.

I’ll try the glass etching cream again and next time I’ll get photos of the process step-by-step! 

Until next time, Happy Crafting

Baby’s First Year Mini Album

Here is a mini album that I created for a baby girls first year. It has a page for the birth, each month of the first year, and a place for that one-year-old photo shoot. There are 18 pages with a lot of hidden places for extra photos, tags, and journaling. I didn’t even use a pre-made album – everything was hand made. The front, back and spine are all covered with fabric. I loved making this album so much that it was very hard to part with it when I finished. But I put it up for auction on Ebay where it (hopefully) went to a loving home.  I hope you enjoy it.

View Full Album

Happy Crafting,

Scrapbook in a Box

Scrapbooking is so versatile! We are so lucky to be involved in an art that can be showcased in so many ways. I made this scrapbook in a box for my Mom. I just used basic black and white colors – even for the photos. Because there are 4 of us “kids”, having the 4 sides of the box was perfect for scrapping each of the siblings and our families.
 We each had one side of the box. I placed older black & white photos of us on the first layer. The second layer had photos of all of our children. On the following layers I put photos of the grandchildren then the great grandchildren (I can’t remember if I had room for the great, great grandkids).
The bow is also handmade using just strips of cardstock (black) and patterned paper (white) cut into various lengths and secured into loops of different sizes. Those loops were then attached together with a large brad. 
Mom keeps it on her coffee table in her living room where she can keep us close to her.
Happy Crafting,

50th Birthday Surprise!

Well, it finally happened. I knew it would have to one of these days but …  Yes, that’s right, DH hit the big FIVE-O! Where did the time go? At least he must feel good about being married to a MUCH younger woman, LOL! Ok, ok, at least he must feel good about being married to a CREATIVE woman! All of our DH’s should feel good about our creative abilities – we are a smart, strong, and loving group! Heck, I am so loving that I made this beautiful, warm, and moving tribute for DH’s 50th birthday – and he was SO surprised:

 

 

 

Yes, this is what met him at the front door when he came home! Glad his sense of humor didn’t die along with his youth.

I used black and grey vinyl to make this door decor. The tombstone and the word ‘beware’ are from the new October 31 cartridge and the other words are from the Jasmine cartridge. Even though I like Halloween that wasn’t the main reason that I got Oct 31. I have so many photos that I still need to scrap from our many trips to Disneyland and Disney World, one of my favorites attractions being the Haunted Mansion. As soon as I saw the images from this cart I knew that some of them would be great on my layouts of all those photos that I took of the Mansions. But it also hit me how perfect some of the images would also be of those landmark birthdays that would be coming up soon. So it really is a must-have.

I used Design Studio to make this and cut the tombstone at 11” and the “50” fit perfectly at 2 1/2”. The other words were weld together and then I just played with both the height and length until I was happy with them. My speed was set on 3, pressure on 2, and blade depth on 2. Remember, you only want to cut through the vinyl, not the paper backing!

So if you have just thought about buying vinyl up until now, I strongly recommend that you just go ahead and do it. It is so much fun to play with and there are so many ways to use it. Next week I’ll show you another way that I’ve used my vinyl.

Welcome to my Cricut Demo Army Sistas

I just shared my blog with my sistas in crime =)! The amazing Cricut Demo Army! I want to say hello to all of them and thank them for supporting my blog. We have all been working to try to make our blogs more visible and we are starting with each other. I am so happy to have such a caring and supportive group of not only co-workers but friends too.  Together we can make all of our blogs very informative and fun. Thanks guys – you’re the best!

Happy Crafting!

Great Service at Scrappy Sales

Well I now have a new Gypsy! I am so excited and can’t wait to charge it up and link my carts to it. My Gypsy from Scrappy Sales came bundled with Independence Day. Scrappy Sales is such a great site. You can find it HERE. Dawn is the owner and not only is her site great (and growing) but her customer service is outstanding! Please visit and bookmark the site for future use.

I LOVE the Gypsy! It really has made using the Cricut so much easier and there’s so much more you can do with your Cricut by adding the Gypsy to your list of tools. Only wish that I could link all of my Cake carts and the 4 new carts that I have from Gypsy #1 to Gypsy #2! Oh well, a scrapper can dream can’t she! After I link my carts I’ll post photos of what I plan on doing with my actual cartridges.

Until then, Happy Crafting

Life's a Beach Scrapbook Layout

I guess that I've been dreaming about being near the ocean with my feet in the sand and a cool drink in my hand. Ahhh, a girl can wish can't she? Well, living in north Texas I sure can't just go spend a day at the beach when I want to. So the next best thing is make a layout about the beach! Ok, not really the NEXT best thing, but kind of close, LOL! I used Life's a Beach cartridge to make this beach scene.

Everything is cut on my Expression except, of course, the sand. For that I used some sand patterned paper that I first tore and then curled the torn edges. Then I used my craft blade and cut wavy lines through the paper. I inked all the edges and the wavy cuts. The tree, chair, sun, sand dollar, and title were all inked too - I'll ink anything that doesn't move! I placed the legs of the chair in one of the wavy lines that I cut to make it look like it was really in the sand.

For the sun I used the Hide Contour feature in Cricut DesignStudio. I love this feature! The sun originally had a smiling face in the middle but I didn't want that. So I selected all of the parts of the face that I didn't want to cut and hid them. Now I just have the outline of the sun!

I went from this:

to this:

I can almost hear the waves crashing onto the shore! Enjoy and Happy Crafting!

Mini Monsters Scrapbook Layout

When I received Mini Monsters I didn't think that I was going to like it very much. My kids aren't kids anymore so I'm really not into the kiddy stuff. But after looking through the handbook I fell in love with the haunted house so I decided to make a scrapbook layout with it and the fence, lamp post, old tree, and the tombstone. The words "spooky", "haunted", and "scary" were originally hanging from the lamp post but it got a little too crowded on the lower part of the layout. So I cut them off and placed them near my photo mats as little journal strips. I'll have to add the photo later (ok, I do still have Halloween photos of my kids that I still haven't scrapped!) but I just had to share the page. I really do love how it came out especially the colors. Even though I did use black, I stayed away from the traditional orange and used turquoise, light blues and gold. Now, I can't say that I'll make any of the little monsters on the cartridge but I will use this cartridge again. Enjoy and Happy Crafting!

Happy 4th Everyone!

I just wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy 4th of July!