It's Official

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it


I'm about to lose control and I think I like it

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it

And I know I know I know I know I know I want to tell you....(changed the lyrics just a bit)
 
okay, so I'm gonna tell you.
 

A while ago I told you that I had something in the works but I couldn't spill the beans until it became official.  Well, yesterday it became official.  I am going to be conducting cricut classes at our local Hobby Lobby.  Can you say WOW.  Here's the scoop.  I know one of the managers from Hobby Lobby since I go there quite regularily.  He had overheard a conversation I was having with my friend, Lisa.  We were discussing the card classes my other friend, Dixie, and I were doing.  His ears perked and he asked me some questions especially regarding my experience with my cricut.  Long story short...he told me to come into the store and talk to the class manager.  The class manager was thrilled.  I guess they had been looking for someone to conduct classes but never found the "right" person.  Hopefully they have found that person in me.  Now the disclaimer is...I am in no way hired by Hobby Lobby or Provo Craft.  All that Hobby Lobby is doing is providing me the classroom.  I am just showing the cricut and it's capabilities and mine I guess.  I set my own schedule and fees.  Now comes the hard part I guess.  Actually teaching...LOL.  I have set up a schedule, made my poster board and registration forms.  Whooohooo.  I am going to start with 2 basic and 2 advanced classes per month.  I figure there are some ladies (and gentlemen) out there that just aren't sure if a cricut is the right thing for them.  The basic class will be just an informational class.  Showing the features, different carts, some design studio and SCAL abilities.  This way they can see hands on instruction before making that purchase.  Which by the way...they will cuz we all know the cricut is addicting.  Then after they've learned the basics about the cricut they can move onto the simple advanced classes which will have "make and takes".  I figure I will start with simple cuts and making something they can take home.  As they progress we can move onto bigger and better, but I also don't want to scare anyone.  I have learned from some of my card making classes that some people just don't "get it".  I will also feature an advanced class for people who already own a cricut and show them something new or if they have questions about certain things.  These will also have "make and takes", but at a larger scale.  I will have a question and answer session included in each class also. Whew, I am exhausted just writing this blog tonight.  Anyway, I hope you all wish me luck in my new adventure and leave me a comment if you have any suggestions.

 

Okay onto today's project.  I had to make my poster board for the entry way of our local Hobby Lobby store.  I also made a few embellishments to put on my board.  So here's what it looks like.

My lighting really is bad in my livingroom, plus I haven't glued anything down yet, so I wasn't able to stand it up properly.  I want to get a second opinion from my DH before completing my project.  He's my scrutinizer.  He always has his two cents to put in.  Once the board is up at Hobby Lobby I will take a better picture.

Here are some of the embellishments I made for on the board. 

Aren't these just the cutest.  I cut them from fun foam.  These door hangers are cut from the Tags, Bags, Boxes and More cart.  I made them in a miniature version.  I think these would be cute on a baby's layout. 

Hope you enjoyed my post today and as always,

have a great day and god bless.

Gift Box with Candles

Another post for today?  Yes,

Since I don't have any little children at home anymore we don't have much for outside toys for the grandkids.  Our neighbor across the road has small grandkids also and saw that my grandson was here.  She offered to let us borrow a big wheel for the week.  She apologized that it was teal and pink...hehehe.  Anyway, Draven didn't care.  He had a lot of fun with it.  To thank her I made her a little something.  I had been at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago and found something called "Wax-O Stencil Paper".  I guess it's to make your own stencils.  Well, it's pretty sturdy and I got an idea.  I made a box using a file for SCAL.  I am not sure where I got the file from, but it had a really cute flower cut out on all four sides.  I did delete the three sides and kept the one infront.  Afterwards I wish I had kept them all.  Maybe next time.  Anyway, I used my cricut with the blade at 5 and the pressure at medium and cut it.  The paper is very slick so I used painters tape to adhere it to my mat and it worked perfectly.  Like I said, the paper is also very sturdy so thefore the box is very sturdy.  I then took a couple of tealights and just got a couple of paper strips and adhered that around them.  A while back I had a tutorial on how to make your own "baby prima roses" on my old blog.  I made two of them with the same paper as the strip.  I used a couple of plastic leaves I took off of some old flower stems and hot glued those to the baby prima roses.  I think they turned out pretty cute.  Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

As always, have a great day and god bless.

Camp Friendship Gift

As many of you know I was at Camp Friendship this last week for a couple of days picking up and dropping off my grandkids.  I got to experience the most amazing couple of days ever.  After I got home I didn't get much craft time because I couldn't get the kids on the same schedule.  When one was sleeping the other one was a awake.  Thanks to my wonderful husband, he took over for a couple of hours so that I could create.  Well anyway, I wanted to do something for the camp and since they mostly rely on donations I decided to make a "Donations" container and a candle.  I went to their website but couldn't find their logo.  I was going to use SCAL to cut it out.  For whatever reason, their logo isn't on the website.  Well, they also use the sign language sign for I love you as part of their motto.  I found a jpeg on the web and then used SCAL and cut out the hand and used that as the focal part of the candle and container.  The hand was cut with vinyl in SCAL and doodled with my "homemade gel pen" with my cricut.  It turned out pretty cool.  I gave them the gifts when I returned to drop the grandkids off.  Here are the pictures, hope  you enjoy them.

The camp director loved these so much that we are planning on doing the "real" Camp Friendship logo in vinyl for car decals as a "fund raiser" for camp next year.  As soon as she emails me the jpeg I will cut it in SCAL and post a blog.  I am so excited.

I also have some more exciting news, but unfortunately I still can't disclose it.  I am just sitting on pins and needles and want to blurt it out.  There are a few minor details to work out yet, but hopefully I will have something concrete to tell you all in a week.  Stay tuned.

As always, have a great day and god bless.

Fair with the grandkids

On Thursday night we went to the Turner County Fair.  County fairs are so much fun.  I love the simplicity of a small town fair much better than the hoopla of a big fair.  People seem more personal and stop to talk to you or just a "Hey, how's it going?".  We went and saw all the animals and the exhibits.  I love seeing the 4H crafts that these kids make.  The giant vegtables and the homebaked goodies are some of my favorites.  We love to play bingo, but it was so hot and we decided to skip it because we did have the babies with us.  We stopped to eat.  Austyn - soft shell taco, Draven - pizza, Bella - bottle and Steve and I - pork sandwiches with potato salad and fruit.  Hmmm, nummy.  Austyn and Draven also shared an elephant ear.  (Pastry with cinnamon and sugar coated).  We then went to the midway and let the kids go on a couple of rides.  Austyn went on his favorite rides the Tilt a Whirl and the Scrambler.  Austyn helped Draven on the Carousel, my favorite and then Draven went through the fun house, and on the Dragons. 

Hope you enjoyed a little more insight into our summer visit.  It's going to be hard to say goodbye to them again, but at least I got a week.  Who knows when I will get to see them again.

As always, have a great day and god bless.

Button

Okay, so I haven't been able to craft because I've had the grandkids.  Well, they both went down for a nap, so I thought I'd play around on the computer for awhile.  I can do that quietly and if they were to wake up, no biggie.  I can easily stop what I am doing, unlike when I craft.  No stopping me that easily.  LOL  Anyway, I've been wanting to make my own button like everyone else has on their blogs.  I really didn't have any idea what I wanted, but at least I wanted to try.  I'm not sure this will stay with my blog forever, but it's a start.  I am very patriotic and love roses.  I had taken this picture a few years ago and thought it was a pretty good one.  I love how the pink sticks out with the red, white and blue background.  I even did a LO for it.  I should probably post that one too one of these days.  But first things first.  Anyhow, I searched for "how to make my own blog button" in google and came upon this tutorial.  It was very helpful and the step by step instructions where great.  Thanks so much to oikology101 for the help.  Hope you enjoy my first attempt at a blog button.  Like I said, I am not sure that I will keep this for sure, but for now it works for me.  Leave me a comment and tell me "HONESTLY" what you think. 

As always, have a great day and god bless.

Grandkids visit

Good Morning all,

Today's post has nothing to do with crafting.  As most of you know, my grandkids are visiting for a week and boy have we been busy.  I drove 6 hours to get them on Tuesday from Rapid City, SD.  We met at Camp Friendship, where my daughter volunteers during the summer.  If you have never heard of it or are interested in learning more, please click the link above.  It's an amazing program.  Both my older children have volunteered their services at the camp for years.  I had never been there and was truley impressed with the program.  They had some posters from years past displayed and I saw my children assisting others.  I am such a proud mom right now.  Most evenings there is a program for the "buddies" at camp.  The night I stayed we had a theme dance.  The theme was "Under the Sea".  You should dress up for the event, but of course, not everyone does.  It's a lot of fun for the "buddies".  The last song of the night is always "Seasons" and they form a circle and dance.  So amazing. 

Dance

"Seasons" cirlce. 

Every day a different group gets to display the flag and every evening they take the flag down.  In the morning they say the "Pledge of Allegiance" and at night they sing "Taps".  It's so neat to see the pride they have doing this.  It absolutely gave me goosebumps.

We then went for breakfast at the lodge and got ready for our long trip back.

The kids did very well on the ride back to Sioux Falls.  Both of them slept most of the way, but we did make more stops coming home than we did going there.  I forgot what it's like traveling with babies.  LOL  I am for sure not complaining though.  We've done alot in the last 2 days and I will have more pictures soon.  We did go to the Turner County Fair last night and I will post about that soon.  I hope you enjoyed a little insight in my week visit with my grandbabies.  I know I loved sharing it with you.

As always, have a great day and god bless.

Challenge

the design challenge is over and i didnt make it but that is ok.  i enjoyed making it and its something that got me thinking outside the box.  i used some techniques i normally dont.  i will have a tutorial on it in the next couple of weeks.

i probably wont be posting anything for a week because i will have my grandbabies staying with me for a week.  they are three and seven months, so i will have my hands full for sure.  i might have to put up some pictures though.  we will see.

sorry i have nothing to show this week, but i have lots of ideas in my head and boy is it full, and i have something special planned for a very special friend i have recently made.  i cant wait to share that with you.

as always, have a great day and god bless.

Design Team Entry

Hi all.  What a great day today.  Austyn and I went to the fair and Steve met us there later on.  It was awful hot, but we drank lots of water and icees.  Ate the best ice cream and played alot of bingo.  Austyn, again, made a haul and I will be posting pictures this weekend sometime.

The reason for this post though is that I entered a Design Team Challenge for the Pink Cricut blog.  I know I don't have a prayer, but I wanted to at least see if I got any votes.  Plus the book was a personal challenge for me.  You have to go to her Facebook page and vote.  I've enclosed a picture of my entry and you can vote for me here.  Thanks for your votes.  I will have a tutorial on this book sometime next week, but until then enjoy for now.

As always, have a great day and god bless.

Magnets and Gift Box

Yesterday was a pretty fun day.  My DH didn't have to work so we got up late and lounged around for awhile.  We watched a movie our oldest son recommended...Never Back Down.  Pretty good movie but alot of violence.  All in all pretty good story line though.  Then we did the last of our youngest son's school shopping.  That was fun.  It's amazing how much these kids know these days.  We did a little bit of clothes shopping too and he kept saying, "mom that's too expensive.  I don't need that".  What a sweetheart.  We bought it anyway.  Our youngest son is going into 5th grade this year, so we had his open house last night too.  We got to meet his teacher, and visit the library and his classroom.  It's a very small school compared to what he is used to.  He will also, for the first time ever, ride the bus to school.  He was always getting rides to and from school from his older siblings or mom and dad.  This year will be totally different.  Plus the bus comes at 6:49 a.m. and doesn't return him home until 3:38 p.m.  Something he is totally not used to.  I will be picking him up Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays though, since those are the days I have off.  (Ssshhh, he doesn't know that yet, it's a surprise.)  Anyway, his teacher seems very nice.  It's only his second year teaching, so we shall see.  I had made a teacher's clipboard for him and we gave it to him last night.  Click here if you missed the post on how I made it.  He seemed to like it.  His room is definately not set up yet, so I have no idea what it will look like, but I am sure it'll have all the standard classroom decorations. 

After the openhouse, we went to the fair to walk around for a little bit.  We did not do any rides last night.  We will be doing an all day fair on Thursday.  Last night we went to the exhibits, saw all the animals and ate fair food.  LOVE fair food.  Grease and all.  We each played 3 games of bingo but neither one of us won.  Austyn came pretty close a bunch of times.  We walked around the middway just to see what kind of rides there were and which ones I might even go on.  Austyn is pretty excited to go on Thursday.

After we got home, I finished a little "back to school" project for my friend's daughter.  Megan will have a locker at school this year and so I made her magnets that spell out her name and a little gift box to put them into.  The magnets are pretty easy to make.  I cut yellow and blue cirlces out with my cricut and modgepodged them to the back of glass globs.  Let that dry and then adhered magnet circles to the back with E5000.  Love that glue.  I used my cricut and SCAL to cut out Megan's name in blue and yellow vinyl and adhered them to the front.  You guessed it, her school colors are blue and yellow.  Then I used my Tags, Bags, Boxes and More cart to cut out the flower box on page 120.  I didn't even use Design Studio for this.  I used a 12 x 12 sheet of paper and I used the fit to page button and cut it out.  He came out to be about 2 1/2 inches high and wide.  I loved it.  Then I used my Accent Essentials cart and cut out 4 different shapes with super glossy yellow paper.  I used SCAL to cut out 4 blue squares 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 and embossed them with my Spots and Dots cuddlebug folder.  Love it.  I used some bling for the flower on top in blue.  Then I adhered them all together and put them on the box and here you go.  A cute little gift box.  I love the way the flower ontop embellishes it too.  Hope you enjoyed today's posting and we will see you again soon.

As always, have a great day and god bless.

Whoooo Loves You?

Today was another fun-filled day at work.  NOT.  The only good thing about working and being bored is that I can bloghop as much as possible on my Droid.  I get a lot of crafting ideas at work.  He, He.  If only I had the gypsy, then I could at least create while I was working.  Oh well, maybe Santa is reading my blog.  Well, anyway, I was blog hopping again as usual and also visiting my most favorite blogs when I saw my name as a winner from a comments page. I always leave comments, whether there is a prize involved or not.  I think feedback, good or bad, is needed.  If I create something someone likes, I like to hear that.  If they don't like it, maybe I can improve on it.  Here I go rambling again.  Back to my original thought...I found my name on kandrew's site.  She is so good to me and I have learned so much from her blog.  She had made this adorable owl sign using banana paper.  Well, I don't know what banana paper is but it looks cool.  I've asked at a couple of scrapbooking places here in town and they don't carry it, but I know I live at the end of the world and it takes forever for us to get the newest supplies in.  Once we get it, it's already old to others.  Anyway, on this site is where I got the foam core board idea for yesterday's creations.  Kristal is so talented.  Again, rambling on.  So I see my name as a winner on her site and I won her paper piecing of the owl.  Of course I had to email her right away to get the file and she was so quick to send it.  Now I just had to wait till I could get off work and go home and make a card.  Boy is it ever cute and soooo easy to recreate.  I embossed his body with the d'vine swirls cuttlebug folder and his feathers too.  Then I used walnut metallic rub ons for his feathers and rosewood rub ons for his beak.  I love these...they are creamy and well, I just love them.  I had some silver sparkly paper scraps and used that for his glasses.  I then pop dotted him to the green striped background paper.  By the way, this project was entirely pieced together with my scraps.  Woot, woot.  I love using up my scraps.  I printed the sentiments Whoooo Loves You? because I don't have a stamp to that affect and I hate stamping individual letters to spell out something.  I know the background is somewhat boring, but I wanted the focus to be totally on him.  (By the way, Kristal's owl was a she).  I think he's pretty cool.  Tell me what you think.

As always, have a great day and god bless.

Candle and Room Sign

Today I was going to spend the entire day crafting.  First Sunday I had off in a long time from work.  I got up early and wanted to make something for my mom.  She had sent me a saying she had found and wanted me to put it on a ceramic tile with vinyl.  I had written the saying down and also entered it into my computer.  I know I had...but I couldn't find it anywhere.  I searched through all my quotes and sayings for over an hour.  I was getting pretty frustrated.  Meanwhile my friend Lisa called and said she was going to come over for a little while.  I told her I would be crafting most of the day.  Lisa is not into crafts the way I am, but she came anyway.  I continued to search my computer for this saying, but still no luck.  While I was searching, we were talking about life.  Lisa's mom has been kinda down and we wanted to make her something to pick her up.  As I was looking through all my quotes, Lisa came across this one: 

Where there is great Love, there are always Miracles.  by Willa Cather

So I made her a candle with vinyl lettering.  Added a few flowers, inked and glitzy.  Added a butterfly and made a matching card.  (I forgot to take a picture of the card).  I showed Lisa how my cricut works.  How the cuttlebug embosses and how my xyron machine makes stickers.  I think she kinda enjoyed watching while I was crafting.  I know I would have probably been bored watching myself.

Then I made a sign for her daughter's bedroom.  Thanks again to kandrew's tip for using foam core as the sign.  (Click on here and it will take you directly to her site making a foam core sign.)  I adhered paper to the foam core.  Used my SCAL to write out Megan's Room, and welded the background.  I was showing Lisa how you can do all these things and how to weld Megan's name and got in a hurry and forgot to weld the word room.  Lisa's remark to me was:  "Don't you have to weld those letters too?"  Really...I guess she was paying attention.  Megan loves ROXY brand, so in SCAL I cut a Roxy Logo also and adhered it to the sign.  Anyway, the sign turned out pretty cute.  She says Megan will love it. I hope so.  I probably could have glitzed it up a bit more, but seriously we were in my craft room for almost 7 hours, minus 1/2 hour to eat some frozen pizzas, yes, I did cook them first.  LOL.  Wow time flies when you are having fun.  Fun for me anyway...  Well here is the picture.

As always, have a great day and god bless.

Just for leaving a comment

Yesterday was such a great day.  First cardmaking in the morning and then the mail came.  A while back kandrew had given a tutorial on her blog about using UTEE and making butterfly embellishments.  She had a video tutorial and everything.  I loved them so much.  She was giving a butterfly or UTEE and skeleton leaves away for anyone leaving a comment.  Well, I always leave a comment no matter what.  I think it is important for people to know if what they are making or showing is liked.  So, no matter if there is a giveaway or not, I try to leave a comment.  So, as always, I did.  Then I won...she sent me the finished butterfly and some UTEE.  Now to try them myself.  I will post them when I've completed them.

Above are the pictures of what I received.  Isnt' that butterfly just spectacular?  Go and visit her page (click on her button on the left sidebar) and become a follower and you will enjoy every minute of it.

As always, have a great day and god bless.

OWH Card making

Good afternoon...today I want to post about a wonderful morning I had.  My scrapping buddy (Dixie) hosted a card making class this morning.  She wanted to send some cards to OWH - Operation Write Home.    Anyhow, some ladies from her church wanted to learn how to make cards and we thought it would be fun to show others how to make them.  Those we will then send to our troops.  Tuesday and Wednesday Dixie and I made sample cards and then we put kits together.  This way they all were the same but yet different.  That was a lot of fun.  Then this morning we got together at her house and created.  It's so much fun watching people with their different ideas.  We had 3 ladies and two of them brought their daughters, 12 and 13.  I think the girls really enjoyed that also.  We are planning on getting together again next Wednesday.  Here are some pictures of our fun filled card making morning and some of the cards we made.

I have something coming up next week that I am very excited about.  I am just busting at the seams because I cannot tell anyone, but be sure to check back on August 11th and I will be able to let you in on my secret. 

As always, have a great day and god bless.

School Days Clipboard

Today's posting is somewhat different.  I actually crafted something.  Whoo Hoo.  Anyway, I have met this awesome gal on another site and she creates some wonderful things.  Right now she is into Alice in Wonderland.  She creates these awesome cut files and she does them in all kinds of formats.  Her name is KAndrew and here is her site.  You can find her button on my left sidebar also.  Anywho, the other day she had this file for a challenge named School Days.  Since I am not into scrapping any pictures right now, I didn't really have a layout that I could do to participate in the challenge, so I decided to use the file in a different way and just not play along.  I hope she doesn't mind, but I really did want to use the file since she was so kind to send it to me.  Well, my son is going to a brand new school this year and he will have a male teacher for the first time.  I always make teacher gifts throughout the year.  I think it is very important to recognize the teachers for what they do.  They have your children more than you do from August thru May and I think education if a very important thing.  Anyway, now that Austyn has a male teacher I am going to be limited on what I can make.  Men are so hard to buy or craft for.  If any of you have any ideas throughout the year, please email me or leave a comment under this post.  I'd so much appreciate it. Ok, back to my story.  Since this file was built around a journaling block she made it look like a post it note.  The lightbulb went off.  I made a Clipboard to adhere post it notes to.  Make sense?  Well, here are the pictures.

I really like the way this clipboard turned out.  I painted the mini clipboard blue.  Then I modgepodged the school paper (which I've had for eons I swear because I am a paper hoarder) onto the clipboard.  I cut out the apple and the paperclip (which is my favorite of this file) and adhered it to the paper.  I cut a piece of tacky tape and attached it to the post it notes and adhered them to the center of the clipboard.  I cut some twine and tied it to the clip of the clipboard and hung a pencil from it.  I think the clip needs a ribbon or something yet as I am looking at the pictures.  When I decide what to add I will post another picture maybe.  Anyway, I am very pleased with the way this turned out and Austyn thinks it is way cool.

So, I hope you enjoyed today's project as much as I did making it.  I have another post I will be adding tomorrow or maybe today yet...what you say? twice in one week?  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  It's going to be a fun project that I have been working on for a couple of days.  See you soon.

Oh yeah, one more thing.  My DD and her husband live in Colorado and therefore I don't get to see my grandkids too often.  My DD is pretty good at sending me pictures.  Well the other day she sent me a picture of Bella sitting in a highchair for the first time.  She is just over 7 months now and boy do I miss her.  Anyway, in a couple of weeks I will have Bella for 1 week while my DD works at a camp here in South Dakota for the mentally and physically handicapped.  I am so excited.  Here is Bella in her first highchair picture.  So grown up.

As always, have a great day and god bless.