Random Projects

I think I may actually get a chance to scrapbook tomorrow!  My husband said he would watch the boys while I had some "me" time, but they both mentioned about wanting to play in the snow tomorrow and that means hot chocolate afterwards.  That means mommy has to make it, but maybe I can get some scrapbooking in before and after.

In the meantime I still have some projects from last year that I would like to share.  This first one is a sign I made for the boys for their first day of Kindergarten! 

I used Locker Talk and My Community Cricut cartridges for the images on the sign.  I kept it fairly simple, well because I did at the last minute!  I worked on it the night before their first day.

I think I am going to have to make a sign for their first day every year now!

This next one actually has a story behind it, one that I think i will remember always.

It's raining chocolate chip cookies!  This all started when my son "C" was makign wishes.  Whenever he saw the first star at night or threw a coin in a fountain, he would say, "I wish it would rain chocolate chip cookies!"  Well, the more tell it like it is son "B" would say, "that can't happen!"  Well, I was determined to make it happen for my sweet little dreamer!

So one day while they were in school, I cut the cloud and cookies from my cricut and baked up a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies.  I tied the cookies to the cloud to make it look like the cookies were coming out of the cloud, and then I tied it to the light in the dining room.  Then I put the plate of real cookies underneath so it looked the plate caught the cookies falling from the cloud.

When they got home and walked into the dining room, I heard a lot of laughter and squeals of happiness, and then the best thing of all.  Son C ran up to me, gave me a hug and said, "Mommy, you made my wish come true!"  Sometimes they can definitely test my patience, but this one statement makes all the effort worth it.  The cookie cloud is now hanging up in their room.

The cloud was made from the cartridge Mickey and Friends, and the cookies are from From My Kitchen.

Counting down to Disney!!

Woohoo!!  It's that time!

We are at our 30 day countdown to our trip to Disney World!  This time we are going to celebrate my sons' 5th birthday.  I can't wait!  My mom and dad are coming as well, which makes this trip pretty special.  I feel I am super lucky to be able to have divorced parents who can still be friends and go on vacation together to celebrate their grandchildren's birthday.  Anyway, onto the calendar...

This is another hybrid calendar made with digital paper, photoshop, and my Cricut!

 

First I worked on the calendar part using digital paper from Digital Design Essentials.  I darkened the background, and lightened the paper for the circles.  I then used the Mickey font and the Disney World font for the letters and numbers.  The size of this portion is 8x8, which is then matted on white, then matted on black.  Once this was done and printed and matted, I worked on the Cricut portion.

I used the Mickey & Friends cartridge for the heart with the Disney, the gloves (border option), and for Mickey and Pluto.  "Countdown" was using the Disney World  font and "to" was using the Mickey font and I just printed that out and cut it by hand.

For the Disney heart, I used the same digital paper I used as the calendar background.  I just printed a patch of the digital paper on regular paper and then cut it with the Cricut.

 

I also cut out little Mickey heads from the cartridge and this is what my boys will put on the dates as we countdown to when we leave.  Every night before we go up to bed, they each take turns and stick one of the heads on that days date.  We even have a special place in our kitchen where I put the countdown calendars, and when I went to put this one up they went right to it and told me where to put it.  The whole thing is mounted on 12x12 paper.

I can't believe my boys are going to be 5 years old!!  I can't believe we will be able to celebrate their birthday (hopefully, if all goes well) in Disney World!  I am really looking forward to this, but I am trying not to show too much excitement because I am always afraid that once I do, the thing I am excited about won't happen!!  So for now I will cross my fingers and hope for the best and maybe pretty soon we will be in the happiest place on earth! :)

Disney Mania

Many projects I start working on, halfway through I think to myself, "What did I get myself into?" I always seem to be happy with the results and once it's finished I always say it was worth it, but during the process I usually have a few choice words.

My latest - my son's autograph book from our Disney World vacation. I thought it would be perfect to use the Disney Cricut cartridges for the characters and names...until I had to start cutting and piecing those things together! Oh my! First I had some trouble cutting some of the smallest and thinnest pieces and would have to try a couple of times to get a cut good enough to use. Then I actually had to glue on those tiny pieces. Some of those tongues are quite small! All the while I am thinking to myself, why didn't I just use stickers???

Of course, once I was all done cutting, piecing, and gluing and I looked at them all together, I was quite happy! I love the dimension it gives, more than what a sticker would do. I haven't even started working on the actual album yet, but at least I am done with this part of it.


I still have to do Lightening McQueen, but for that one I just may make his name using the cartridge instead of doing the car also. I made a fit to page Lightening McQueen for my son and it came out pretty big and it still had small parts so I can't even imagine having to cut it at a size that would fit in an 8x8 album. I also am trying to find stickers for other characters or at least something I can add to those pages.

I didn't put the album together before we went because I had no idea what characters we would see or even if my sons would be interested. Turns out, one was and one wasn't. So I just bought one regular autograph book and I tore out the pages that were signed and matted them on black cardstock. My album will be 8x8 and one side will be for the autograph and the other side will be for the picture. I am probably going to keep this album pretty simple, since I would like to be done with it before we go again (which might be in October for their birthday!!).