Halloween Lights

A few weeks ago, I saw the cutest project on www.pinkcricut.com.  She used Dixie cups to make little party lites.  Hers turned out to be quite chic and perfect for her daughter (as I have these planned for mine as well and sports ones for my sons!).  But, she mentioned the idea of making these for Halloween.  We are in Halloween craft central right now, so this became a project that we added to our list. 

It's simple, but a little time consuming, so be ready.  I got a pack of 35 lights from Hobby Lobby for about $3.50.  Then, I just covered Dixie cups with colorful Halloween paper.  As the Pink Cricut suggests, make a pattern from a cup first.  The paper I used is from DCWV.  I did use some stronger tape to hold the paper around the cup.  Then, I made a little cut in the bottom of the cup and pushed the light through.  Cute and can be made for any occasion to add a little LIGHT!  We are going to start working on the other two and will post pictures of those when we finish.

Pink Notebook

This was a joint project between me and my daughter.  We have been wanting to do a project with felt for a while, and found some time to work on this notebook over the weekend.

I found a 5"x7" notebook on sale at Wal-Mart last week for $1.50.  We decided on this pink leopard felt from Hobby Lobby and also picked up a few light pink pieces as well.  Then, we chose four different style ribbons: pink leopard, black and white zebra, black, and pink with white stitches.  We attached the felt to the front and back covers with red line tape.  Then we tied the ribbons along the spiral.  She thought it was lacking something on the front cover, and she wanted glitter!  Instead of using glue to make a glittered "E", I suggested we try using red line tape.  I think this worked well.  We were able to get perfectly straight lines, and very little glitter mess.  The glitter sticks really well to the tape, and it doesn't feel like it is crumbling off every time you touch it.

Then, we added pink zebra paper on the insides, and added a little felt on the pocket for additional character.  But, what good is a notebook without a pen?  We covered a pen with the felt and red line tape.  To make the end of the pen, we took strips of the ribbon and hot glued them to the pen. 

This was a fun project, and we love the personalization.  We have more ideas for these in the future!

Catching Up on Scrapbook Pages

Little by little I am catching up on my scrapbooking. I like to scrapbook each of my children's school years. I try to ask them questions and note their responses, and in most cases, they don't remember what they have told me from year to year. This is part of what makes looking back through them so fun! Now, I didn't say I was all the way caught up, only getting caught up! Over the Labor Day weekend, I finished two pages: one for my oldest's 1st day LAST year and one for my middle child's 1st day LAST year. I have designs for the others I need to do. I was hoping to get baby brother's from preschool last year completed to share, but that didn't happen. Hopefully I will get completed this week.

Here's the first one. I used a Fiskars ad as inspiration. It looks very similar to theirs, but I thought it was neat and cute. I did add the white stitch along the top and bottom of the patterned papers -- I like a stitched look!

The primary color papers of blue and red came from a paper pack I got at Wal-Mart. They have some pretty nice paper for $5 a pack. The patterned paper is from SU!. The apple was cut from the Cricut Lite Recess cartridge. By the way, I'm having an issue with this cartridge and my Gypsy. I cannot cut with the Gypsy and this cartridge, but I can cut with it straight from the Cricut. I will be calling Provocraft tomorrow! I love this cartridge, and really need to use my Gypsy with it. I cut the "back to school" using Plantin.

Here's the second page. For this one, my inspiration came from a Scrapbooks Etc. page.

I used the Recess cartridge for the "School" cut, Plantin for "kindergarten", and DoodleCharms for the bus. All this paper came from Wal-Mart too. Also, the "kindergarten" is done in red vinyl. It is just so much easier to cut out the vinyl and it's usually a cleaner cut. Then, I use my transfer tape to place on the page. It lines up very nicely.

I have about 7 more pages I need to do to get caught up, then do a better job staying on top of it this year. I did do a little clean-up today with my paper and scraps. I will share that soon. I am very pleased with my solid cardstock and scraps, but not 100% on how I want to do my patterned paper yet. Plus, I would like to maintain my SU! paper in a labeled something so I can sync it up with ribbon, etc. Still thinking on best way to do this with limited space. Always something to do!

Happy Birthday to Brody!

Today is my oldest son's birthday!  Happy birthday Brody!  He had a good day at school, and is looking forward to a long Labor Day weekend playing his newest Wii game.  He is at ball practice right now, so I thought I'd post two of his latest baseball pictures.  He's my ball player!  Love you Brody!