My Christmas Gift

For Christmas, my Honey bought me the Classic Oval Nestabilities (all four...2 regular and 2 scallop sets.)  Here's my first project playing with them.  I used a Stampin' Up! embossing folder on the back of the card and some PCHugware (From the Feathered Nest by Kaelynn Winn) for the "Thanks".

Glam Gloves

Saw these on The Greenbeans Crafterole and giggled the whole time I was making them.  I used old clip-on earrings for the rings, cutting off the back so they were smooth.  I used Fabri-Tac for the glue.  (If you don't have any of this glue, GET SOME!  It is powerful stuff!  Use your 40% coupon at Michael's or JoAnn and get the small bottle.  The big one will dry out before you get done with it.)  If you look closely at the first picture you can see the chain on the other pink glove.  It was cut to 4 inches and tacked on the gloves just at the sides of the cuff.

Our Advent Calendar

A few years back a friend shared this project with me.  Taking a 24 cup mini muffin tin, prime it and paint it.  Line the insides of each muffin spot with Christmas paper.  A 1-1/4 inch circle punch was perfect for this.  Cut chipboard (from cereal boxes or the backs of paper pads) into squares to fit over the muffin spots.  Adhere cute Christmas paper to the chipboard and sand edges.  Glue magnet strips along two parrallel edges on the back of each chipboard square.  Decorate the squares and then fill with notes, verses, candy, gifts etc.

Here is ours.

 

On the first day, the slip of paper directs us to make a Stable.  We've done it out of graham crackers, Legos and I can't remember what else.  I made little Sculpey Nativity figures to "discover" through the month.  Baby Jesus is always the last day.  (By the way...the snake thing was my son's contribution.)  Every morning it's a rush to the advent calendar to see what Bible verse, challenge and possible figure there is for the day.

This Year's Christmas Card

 

Merry Christmas!

Personalized Water Bottles

We have a passel of nieces and nephews.  This year, for Christmas, we decided to give them each a personalized water bottle.  Using the vinyl and choosing different fonts for each individual was a bunch of fun.  I love how crisp and stark the names came out.  The "Carl" one is probably my favorite! (The font is called LokiCola.)

Pyrex Glass Etching

Last Summer, Cricut sent out an advertisement for one of their cartridges.  On it they had a picture of a Pyrex casserole dish that had been etched on the bottom.  I was thinking that looked like a bunch of fun so have been playing with it.

I found that: 1) Leave the etching cream on for about 25 minutes.  The tempered glass seems to need the extra time.  2)  Be very generous with the etching cream.  It really helps with the evenness of the etch.  3) Don't forget to cut the image out mirrored or it won't show through the right direction.  4)  Make the Cut really rocks for getting the circles for the pie plates!  I can't recommend it highly enough! and 4) The etching is on the underside of the pie plate...not where it'll touch food. (Thought I'd better add that :) )

Here's the pie plate I did for a special friend at church.  I've also made one for a wedding shower coming up.  That one is a 9x13 dish.  Should be great for pot lucks.  No more masking tape labels :)

Another Ikea Lantern

Saw this idea while blog surfing.  I didn't have the cartridge the blogger used so made my own reindeer using Make the Cut.  Thought it was a fun winter decoration.

Baby Shoes

Made a pair of these baby shoes for a gift topper.  Thought they were fun to look at, but a bit of work to make.

Miles and Miles of Tiles

I've been working hard on Christmas gifts!  Making a few of these tiles for family members.  Won't post those yet, but here is the one that I made for our family.  Make the Cut and the font called "Nabel" are the tools used in designing this for the Cricut.  Since this tile, I've been bringing the letters into Photoshop first and removing all the dots.  Just too many and it takes FOREVER to cut it out and a majority don't even stay after weeding the vinyl.  I found the tiles at a garage sale...14 of them for a total of $1.  Cool, huh?

Another Name Plaque

Another baby shower gift...a girl version of the jungle one I've done before. 

 

This picture is the nursery theme I was trying to coordinate with.

Girly Girl Name Plaque

Here's the latest Baby Shower gift.  Due to deliver tomorrow...the gift, not the baby.  I was pleased with how this came out and really enjoyed getting to design for a little girl.  And what's better is I found a coordinating pair of Carter's pajamas at Costco for little Allyson too!  So much fun!

Shoe and Purse Themed Retreat

I'm just back from a wonderful weekend away at our church Women's Retreat.  This year I had the privilege of heading it up.  I had been dying to do a fun and funky, bright and cheerful type event.  So this year we took on shoes and purses.  The ironic thing is that I know nothing about fashion, name brands or anything else that's really hip.  The following are what we came up with in our pursuit to carry out a theme.

This is our invitation.

Room Decor

A couple more shoe options for bedrooms.

 Mints for pillows.

Notebook.

 Gift Card holder.

 

And one confused Deer :)

Anniversary Party

The following are the decorations and gifties for my in-laws' 50th Anniversary party. 

We spray painted the small roses with gold paint.  The can backfired and totally gilded our hands!  Turpentine doesn't even get it off...hopefully it'll exfoliate by the date of the party.

Disney Theme Gifts

Here are two of my latest projects...

I spruced up this cute lantern from Ikea with Tinkerbell.  She was designed with Make the Cut Software and my Cricut.

I also altered this star dish to go with it...still keeping the Disney theme.

Votive Candle Holder with Vinyl

Just a quick post to share a quick project.  Using the vinyl, cut with the Cricut, you can decorate all sorts of things.  Here is my candle holder.  I did a quick one and heat tested it with a candle inside. It seemed to do fine.

AWANA Grand Prix Cars

We have a tradition here. Every year we set out to make unique and cool pinewood cars that will be fast enough to win.  The number of cars varies depending on how many family members are involved with AWANA.  Every year we vow to start earlier...most years we end up starting the week before.  This year, I can say we started about a month before...somehow it still seems to come down to the last week of intense effort and the night before the race being up until the wee hours of the morning to make the finishing touches on the cars.

Well...today was the race.  Our family was up until 3am...Here is what was entered...

This is Josh's car, modeled after a WiiMote. 

I'm not sure pictures do it justice.  Tom did awesome carving it and adding the buttons.  If you have large hands, it would be just right.

A little side note...graphite is VERY MESSY!  We suran wrapped the car to try and keep it off the white.  The graphite just made its way down under the plastic....grrrrr.  Water just smears it. Dusting helps a little, but the perfect solution was a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.  Worked like a charm to get all of the marks off!

Timmy wanted to race himself so this is his car...

He was a bit disturbed when Tom carved the back up to put the weights in.  We had fun with this one.

Melissa wanted a fast car with a message so she decided her car would be car number 1234567.  This was perfect for doing the 7 days of creation.  Her drawings were cute! and yes her car was fast.

The final results of the race...
    Joshua, 4th place Speed for TNT Clubbers.
    Timmy, 1st place Speed for Sparks and 3rd Overall.
    Melissa, 2nd place Speed for Open Class.

The following are some of the cars we've entered over the past several years.  I wanted to share, because I'm so proud of Tom's workmanship and attention to details.

Garage Sale Find

Maybe I take this coordination thing a bit far? :)  We were at JC Penny's last night and I had found a cute plaid purse, but didn't buy it because they lined it with orange (yuck!)  I asked my daughter where the polka dotted purses were when you needed them.  She couldn't think of a time that you would need anything polka dotted.  Hmmmm. 

Checked out a few garage sales today and look what I found!  Woo Hoo!  It was just waiting for me. (And only a dollar! :) )  I think we "needed" each other.