A Tale Of Two Scarecrows

Hi friends and fellow crafters!

Today I am sharing two scarecrows that I created using my Cricut Explore and the Scarecrow file from the SVG Cuts kit Leaves Are Falling. 

We were invited to visit my cousin and I wanted to bring her an Autumn themed hostess gift that she could display for a couple of months. The Scarecrow was a perfect choice. The first thing I did was watch SVG Cuts video on YouTube to get a feel for what I would be doing. I added the images to Design Space, resized them, and cut them out. So simple! Then I began to assemble him.  There may have been one or two legs and a body that were discarded, but once I got the feel for folding the paper, it was smooth sailing the rest of the way. It was so much easier than I thought it would be!

I loved it so much that I decided to make one for myself.

 

Hey, can you tell by the pictures which cousin has the green thumb?  I can't even grow grass! LOL!

So if you are like me and a little reluctant to try the 3D files, give it a try! You will be so happy you did!

 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

 

Happy Crafting!

Colleen

Kaylee's 1st Birthday Party! Part 2

Hi friends! I am finally back with the rest of my projects for Kaylee's 1st Birthday Party. I can't believe it was over a month ago since we celebrated her special day.

My niece found some wonderful ideas for her 12 month banner on Etsy. One of the banners was really eye catching, and my niece loved it. It was at Luxe Party Supply and is really pretty. We loved the style, but the colors were hot pink and black zebra print. We decided to base Kaylee's banner on that design. I think it may be one of my favorite paper creations ever.

I had to make her a very special glass block for her birthday.

I created  a guestbook for her using my Cricut Explore and an album from SN@P. I added some of her professional portraits from her 1st Birthday photo shoot, and I am making extra pages with the pictures I took from the party. It should be nice and chunky after it is finished.

 The owls are by Trina Walker via Digi Scrap Kits. There are also some great designs by her and others at Kadoodle Bug Designs. I used her owls, along with some Cricut owls all over the decorations.

I cut some fun masks and mustaches from my Cricut image collection. We had a great time with these.

So cute!

My niece decided to have a thank you for the adults as well as the children in attendance. Once again, we used the Trina Walker owls. For the adults we made mason jars filled with layers of popcorn, M&Ms, pretzels, Skittles and Cracker Jacks. They were yummy! The tags were made with my Cricut.
For the kids, my niece filled up bags I made with lots of fun goodies. Candy, toys and little special extras overflowed! I wish I had a picture of them from the party, but in all the excitement I didn't take one.

I also tried my hand at making a wooden owl. I used my Cricut, acrylic paint, Mod Podge and some little extras I had in my craft room. It came out really cute considering this isn't my usual crafting forte. The eyes came from an SVG cut from Paper Crafting World I hand trimmed the feet and wings.

I made an extra banner for the gift table and desert table. We forgot to hang the desert table banner up. Silly us! Still the table looked phenomenal! How about those adorable cupcakes made my by niece's Mom? They tasted as good as they looked! Kaylee's cake was beautiful!

The kids had blast playing under the gift table. LOL! They also loved the face painter and balloon art!

This was the best party! Everyone had a wonderful time. I loved seeing Kaylee's reaction to all the excitement and festivities! I suppose I need to start getting ready for next year's party!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Happy Crafting!

Kaylee's 1st Birthday Party! Part 1

Hi friends! It has been so long since I have created a post. I was creating the whole time I have been MIA, but found it difficult to keep up with my blog, my favorite message board, the Cricut Circle Board, Facebook , and all the other social media out there. How did I get to connected? LOL!

Way back in April, I started helping my niece plan my Great Niece's 1st Birthday Party! It was such an exciting time for us and I was so honored to be asked to help! There was plenty to do, pick out her outfit, plan the invites, her favors, the decorations, just to name a few things. I had to get busy creating all these great ideas!

Today I want to share some of the pictures from the party with you.

I should start at the beginning. My niece wanted an Owl Theme. That was her them for the shower, so she thought it would be fun to use it for Kaylee's birthday too. It really was a great idea! We started by creating the invites for the party.

I blocked out the personal info in the picture, but the Explore wrote out everything beautifully! I used Bella Blvd. Birthday Girl papers for the patterned layer and Recollections for the solids. I just want to add that Micheal's and AC Moore saw A LOT of me from April through July. We tied pink tulle bows on them. So pretty!

Next we went to work on designing the centerpiece, hat and banner for the baby. The links to Etsy and Pinterest were flying back and forth between us. We found so much inspiration out there, it is incredible how talented people are.  My niece is quite a planner and made sure that the baby's 1st year birthday pictures were taken early so that she would have them in time for the party. Smart girl...

I used all Cricut cuts on these. The font is Sophisticated, it was perfect for the decorations. 

The 2 pictures above are all done by the photographer, Sara. It was so excited to see some of my creations professionally photographed.

I had a blast creating her special party hat. It was so over the top, but hey, you only turn 1 once! Yikes, that is a blurry picture, isn't it? Sadly, it was the only one I got with the baby in her hat. I took it when I dropped the hat off to Holly.

Here's my little sweetie in her high chair with the banner on it. 

 

Here are the centerpieces.We made 14 of them. I used owls from Create A Critter and Creative Memories, Tiny Treasures. The flowers with the birthday accessories were a free file from Too Cute By Jessica, she has the most adorable SVGs. I stocked up on Micheal's pails, paper grass and ordered the little buckle jewels from Oriental Trading. Some more tulle and they we perfect!

Finally, I want to share the beautiful family!

I will be back tomorrow with more pictures an more about the party!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Up, Up and Away!

Hi friends and fellow crafters! Today, I am sharing the 1st Mother's Day card I gave to my niece. I love that we can cut svgs with the new Explore, so I got to enjoy playing with the box cards from SVG Cuts.  The hot air balloons are eye catching and worked nicely with Design Space. The balloons are attached to the spacers, so there was no need to fiddle with acetate. It makes creating box cards simple! I changed the banner and used my Explore to cut a banner and write the sentiment. I also used it to write the sentiment in the circle that was supplied with the set. It was raining when I took the pictures, so they look a little dark, but the card was very pretty when it was finished. Here are a few more pictures.

All the paper is from my stash.

I can't wait to try the rest of the cards!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen

Congrats to the winners and a couple of extra projects.

Hi friends and fellow crafters!

I want to congratulate all the winners from the NSD Circleville Celebration! There were some lovely projects linked here and over at the message boards! Thank you to all the participated!

There were 3 winners randomly chosen from a hat by Danny:

Heidi won for her beautiful card for the Lift It Up Challenge. You can see it here on the link up.

Susan won for her gorgeous rosette present for a friend's 5Oth Birthday!  Hopefully she will post it on her blog soon.

There is also a special mention to Queen B! She posted a splendid rosette banner for a graduation. Stop at her blog and visit to see her amazing crafting skills.

Keep an eye on your mail ladies and thanks for joining in on my challenge!

Even though I haven't been posting so much, I have still been creating! Today I am sharing some fun cards that I created a couple of months ago. These were made for a card drive my friend Sherri was having. She does a Card Shower at Arkansas Children's Hospital every year and I am honored to send some cards for such a worthy cause. I have been having so much fun using my Disney Carts since I have gotten my Explore. The design space makes it so easy to create wonderful cuts without the headache of trying to figure out all the colors of the tiny pieces. If I want to, I can change colors as I go along. I used my Explore to write Howdy Partner on all the cards, I LOVE this feature! I inked edges on the Woody cards and added faux stitches to Jessie. It was the 1st time I used the Toy Story Cartridge, but not the last!

 

Next is a recipe card that I created for a swap I participate in. This is my winter recipe, Easy Chicken Marsala. The chicken are from Animal Kingdom, the scarves are from 3 Birds On Parade, the trees are from Winter Woodland, and the mushrooms are from Cindy Loo. The title was the 1 thing I used my Explore to write and cut!

 

 

 

Finally, I have loved the Make It Now Projects in Design Space, and I have used the Anna Griffin Butterfly cards a few times. This is the 1st one I created for my girlfriend's 50th Birthday. I used Anna Griffin's perfect palette cardstock and her black board stamps to make this.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

 

Happy Crafting!

Colleen