Children Around the World

A couple of months ago I was up to my eyeballs in, well, eyeballs!!!

I know, looks weird, right? But wait until you see what they were for! I joined a swap on the Cricut Circle message board that was hosted by the fabulous Renee, aka RockinRenee. It was for the cartridge, Children Around the World. When it first came out, it reminded me of the Disneyland ride, It’s A Small World, and I knew that I had to have it! We picked one of the ‘children’ and made 25 each. Well, somewhere between reading that and actually making them, I had a senior moment and cut out FIFTY kids instead! So now imagine those eyeballs – 1 doll x 2 eyes x 2 pieces per eye = 200 itty bitty pieces of cardstock!!! There were eyes everywhere! Even now, two months later, I can find eye pieces on the carpet around my work table. But it was worth it!

I choose the African girl. Here are photos of my kids in progress:

I tried to pick different shades of cardstock to represent my girls from Africa (since we are women of color – many different colors!) even though for me it is so hard to pick cardstock to represent any correct shade of skin tone!

Besides the eyes, the really only other small pieces were the little sandals. But since we all cut out our kids at 5” it wasn’t that difficult at all to put them together. There were pieces for my girls hat and her dress.

I think I’m more excited about this part than any other! I used several different patterned papers for all of the dresses and it ALL came from my stash!!! I didn’t plan it that way but I’m so happy that I was able to use papers that I had on hand. It feels like such a big accomplishment to me!

And here are my girls! Don’t they look so cute and fun? I’m happy about the way they came out.

Each doll on the cart also comes with a companion image – mine was the hut – so I used CCR to make the hut into a Thank You card for our hostess, Renee.

When you are part of a swap, one of the best parts is receiving your swap package from the hostess with everyone else’s creations. And I so excited when my package arrived! The other ladies did a fantastic job with their kids. There is so much added detail to each. I am so amazed with my Circle sisters! I am linking Renee’s post on her blog, I Came, I Saw, I Created,  with all of the 25 children so that you can see how lovely they all are. And while you are there, take some time to look around her blog – Renee has so many wonderful and beautiful projects to share! Tell her that Angela sent you to visit!

Until next time, Happy Crafting,

Cricut Circle Stick Pin Swap

Hey friends! When I joined the Cricut Circle there was a stick pin swap already in progress but I loved reading the swap thread even though I wasn’t a part of the group. The posts on this thread were so entertaining and I could just tell that this group of women were a lot of fun. I posted that I was just having a ball reading their posts everyday and that I would like to try making some of the stick pins just for myself since I still had a lot of beads left over from my jewelry making days. To my amazement, a couple of the ladies agreed to do a one-on-one swap with me! Ohhh, how sweet (thanks jjewel and scrapcat). So I got to work on my pins – well, after a little retail therapy! Yes, I had to go buy a few, well okay, a little more than a few (and that’s all that I will admit to) more beads! Then towards the end of the swap, someone dropped out and they asked if I could be they’re Angel. They must have noticed the halo in my avatar – and they didn’t even mind if it was a little crooked, lol! So I ended up making enough stick pins for everyone in the group – two each. That’s a grand total of 38 stick pins! I even made a tag for each set although mine were nothing like the ones I received back. Those ladies aren’t just nice, they are all so talented! These are now my Circle sisters and some have become good friends.

Today I will share some of the stick pins that I made and later on I will share all of the gorgeous pins that I got in return. (I still haven’t taken any photos of them yet. I was so amazed when I opened the box, all I have been able to do is lay them all out and ohhh and ahhh over them!) Now, for those who are not sure what stick pins are, think about the old hat pins but on a smaller scale. They are very popular in scrapbooking and card making right now.

And here are two sets that I had already packaged with their tags:

I cut these cute little Bug Heads with my Cricut, of course!

The stick pins were so much fun to make and my Circle swap group is the greatest! I had so much fun, in fact, that I signed up with this group to swap again. This time? Yep, more beads! We are swapping beaded tendrils to make bracelets in one group and the other group is for the “die hard crafter” and we can make anything we want to as long as it has beads. I foresee another round of retail therapy in my near future…

Until next time, Happy Crafting,