Want to win and EXPRESSION????????

Who would not? This is probably the best machine in my eyes. It has really upped and expanded my scrapbooking, and altering. For lots of inspiration and a chance to win click below!

http://www.cricutholiday.com/2010/05/our-gigantic-national-scrapbook-day.html

Does this look like burlap to you?

I see burlap looking flowers/embellies everywhere these days. Well I was playing around tonight cutting some of the metal tape flowers for a friend and found this tape. I can't think of the name just now, BUT I cut two each of 1.75, 1.5 and 1 inch circles, layered, inked and stuck a brad through. I know the picture quality stinks but does it look like burlap? It is sticky on the back but not too sticky to play with. What do you think?

My last Practical Scrappers Layout

All good things must come to an end. This week that is my amazing time at Practical Scrappers Design Team. I have really stretched myself and loved my time on this talented team. I plan to keep playing with the challenges and I hope you will too.

This weeks challenge is BUTTONS. I love buttons. I have a HUGE sorted jar of buttons, I wish I had buttons from my grandmas but I do not. I however HATE threading buttons LOL! Here is my take. I used buttons for the photo corners, to highlight the photo, and threaded on the ribbon.

These pictures were this past winter when Caitlyn received her first trike. She now is wishing and begging for a REAL bike, but cannot even pedal this one yet! She will be riding a bike before we know it.

So what are your plans this weekend, specifically for NATIONAL SCRAPBOOK DAY! YAY! I have already informed my hubby that I will be unable to perform my wifely and motherly duties starting at midnight tonight! HA! We will see how that goes! Whatever you do have fun!

Gorgeous only to a Mommy artwork

Today for Tot School we used a glue stick for the very first time. I also wanted to get her into tearing the construction paper but that was a no go! She sure does have HER way of doing things and on HER time. That is alright though, this is supposed to be FUN and learning along the way. I finally got everything organized out in the laundry room so we are good to go with doing different things. Some days we do not do it, but I always make sure we do SOMETHING educational even if it is only naming colors or doing counting. She is getting better and better with one to one counting by the way. Anyways here is Caitlyns masterpiece. I need more paper bags now! The tile is her Mawmaws Mothers Day gift, work of love that will be treasured I am sure.

Ducks

A good friend posted this sketch on Face book with a challenge so I thought I would try it. I rotated the sketch to the right in order to make my pictures work with it. Not strictly the sketch but it was the basis. I used Create a Critter for the Duck at the top, then various stamps and punches for the rest. LOTS of ink! Hope you like it!

We made HATS!

Today for tot school we did foamies and making hats. I am trying to get her to do more stickers but she is not too keen on them sticking to her fingers, she tends to freak out. I did not think she would like to make the hat either BUT we were watching Special Agent OSO on Disney and HE made a hat so I guess that made it alright!

Tot School today

I have been slacking with Tot School only because we were so busy last week. We were gone daily from about 8 to right before nap time, then outside to play and dinner and bath. However this week is calling for rain (will believe it when I see it!) so we have some fun "learning' things planned. I reused the Egg dying containers (ran through dishwasher first of course) and then cut up some scraps of card stock to coordinate with the color of the cup. The first time I tried this she wanted nothing to do with it. Then Daddy found her playing by herself so he sat down and showed her and she loved it. She got them all right too! Guess I will have to challenge her more. He would hand her a piece of card stock, ask the color, make her say it, and then tell her to put it in the cup of the same color. She did great!

Lollipop Love

Good afternoon. Hope you all are enjoying your weekend. We are slated for LOTS of rain but so far hardly anything :(. I know I am strange, but I LOVE the rain, especially right now since it washes away the pollen! LOL! Anyways this morning while making Mothers day cards I sorted and organized all my unmounted rubber and small inkadinkado and Studio G stamps into my binder. I found this awesome tree one and the journal tag that says 2009 on it. I love them! I also broke out my old school decorative scissors again! Glad I kept those! The pictures are from October 2009, Harvest Fest (a few more layouts of this day!). This was the start of Caitlyns love affair with Tootsie Roll Pops, any size, any color. She was so happy to "win" three lollipops and took quite a long time picking them out LOL! For the lollipop embellishment in the top right I unwrapped a NEW mini Tootsie Roll pop, glued the wrapper onto some heavy card stock and punched a 3/4 inch circle out of it, attached the unused lollipop stick and there you go! I inked it a little too (it is dual purpose, serves as a handmade embellishment and covers up the strangers in the picture LOL). Well that is about it. Hope you had a great weekend!

Scrapbookpal.com Design Team Call

One of my favorite online stores is having a design team call. I am so excited. I bought so much from them at CKC 2008, I am still using some of it LOL! They carry everything that I consider staples in my crafting plus some. The design team call was to create something using products that they carry. I will list those below the post. First let me apologize for the pictures, it is raining and no sun at all here (and none slotted for a few days). I also took them in the frames since I forgot to take them before and well they are in there now.

I made these 12.5 by 12.5 framed art pieces for my friends new baby to be. She is having her second, a little girl. The nursery walls are yellow and the curtains are with cute bugs. I sure hope she likes this even though I made the background paper.

Every single cut is from Cricut Cartridge Walk in my Garden cut at 3.5 inches including all layers. The only thing that I cut by hand is some of the grass, where I whipped out my old school decorative scissors for it.

I cut the purple(3) and green(3) card stock into 4X6 pieces.
Using Fiskars Threading Water punch, punch three of the six pieces.
Using Walk in my Garden cricut cartridge and the Cricut Expression cut all necessary items, bees (two sets), bee hive, snail, snail tag (for baby snail), caterpillar, and lady bugs (flip one image to make them face one another)
Adhere all layers, ink and accent with doodle dots and googly eyes
Cut clouds from WIMG shadow Hycanith at 1.25, 1.5 2 and 2.5 inches,run through Swiss dots cuttlebug folder
Ink with VersaMagic Sea Breeze ink.
Adhere with ATG tape or Zig two way chisel pen.
Cut sun from WIMG shadow sunflower at 2 and 2.5 inches, piece together, add doodle dots and adhere to pages.
Add felt flower, hand cut grass and misc other embellishments as desired.
Ink all edges.
Make background paper using cream card stock and Tim Holtz milled lavender and peeled paint distress inks.
Adhere six pieces to handmade background paper, alternating purple and green backgrounds.
Frame.
Enjoy!

Products used:
Fiskars Threading Water punch
Cricut Expression, 12X12 mat
Cricut Cartridge Walk in my Garden
Glue dots (mini)
Zig 2 way Chisel Pen
Scotch ATG 714 dispenser
Scotch ATG Gold 1/4 inch tape
Cuttlebug
Cuttlebug Swiss Dots Embossing Folder
Colorbox Fluid Chalk Chesnut Roan (my FAV!)
Ranger Stickles Glitter Glue-Crystal
Fiskars 12 inch personal paper trimmer-orange
Honey Bee Scissors
Stardust Gel Pens
EK success Millennium .05 Pen
Tim Holtz Distress Inks-milled lavender
Tim Holtz Distress Inks peeled paint

Also used:
Signo White Gel Pen for all the doodling
Quick Quotes powder puffs green with envy
VersaMagic multi surface chalk ink sea breeze
Various Cardstock and Patterned paper from stash
Frames from Michael's

Practical Scrappers-Floss Fibers and Ribbon

Good morning. The challenge this week at Practical Scrappers was floss, fiber, ribbons. This is my next to last week with them. I have truly enjoyed my time with Practical Scrappers and plan on playing along every now and then. For my take on the challenge I used brown gross grain ribbon to make a trendy banner with a twist. I punched my triangles out, stamped "Happy Birthday!" on them then glued/stapled them onto the ribbon. I think it is rather manly while fitting with the banner trend. I made the onesie that Caitlyn is reluctantly modeling in the picture. It was a quick one with fabric markers, the cricut freezer paper method, and it was not even all the way dry by the time I stuffed her into it LOL! I also made the shirt that Jon is wearing using the freezer paper method. Super simple and he still wears it today!