Birthday Arrangement

Hi friends!! I am in the midst of making things for my daughter's birthday party which is this weekend!! I was going to make a gumball topiary but decided against it. I decided to put my Cricut to work instead. I took a dollar pail from Target and covered it with some card stock to hide the polka dot pattern that didn't match the party colors. To hide some imperfections, I added the ribbon to the top part of the pail. The pinwheels are from an earlier post. They are simple to make. I added them at the end because I felt that it was just missing something. All of the cuts are from the Sweet Treats cartridge. The ice cream cone is cut at 4 1/2". Happy Birthday, the party hat and the 5 candle is 4". I attached them to bbq skewers and then poked them down into the Styrofoam. I added some sparkly shredded paper to cover the Styrofoam and there you have it. Simple and easy! I'd love to hear what all you've done for birthday party decor!!

Hugs,

Stephanie

Pin the Cherry on the Ice Cream Cone

Hi friends!! I have been working on my daughter's 5th birthday party! I am almost done with everything. Today I have a twist to the game Pin the Tail on the Donkey. We are having an ice cream party for her and so we will play pin the cherry on top of the ice cream cone. I took a poster board that I bought at the Dollar store. I used Plantin Schoolbook for the lettering. The letters are 2 1/2" and I believe that they are cut using the roly poly feature as well. The ice cream cone is cut using fit to page. I had some trouble with a couple of the layers so they were cut using the sizing of 11 1/2". It is from the Sweet Treats cartridge. I added some stickling to the cherries to make them stand out. I cut out 2" circles for the cherries. I hope that this will be a sweet addition to my daughter's party!! :)

Pinwheels

These are the cutest and easiest things to make for any kind of decoration!! I am making these for some added decoration for my youngest daughter's birthday party. All I did was take two 6" squares of two different kinds of paper. (You can either cut them down yourself or use the Cricut and cut a 6" square. I found it easier to cut the 12 x 12 scrapbook paper down myself. The solid card stock paper was easier to cut through my Cricut using George cartridge.) If you use double sided paper, then you only need one sheet. I used papers that coordinated with the invitations that I made. I made diagonal lines on one sheet. The lines met in the center of the paper. From the center, I measured out 1" on each line and made a mark. I then cut along the lines until I reached the mark. You leave one inch from the center uncut. Take and using alternating slits, I folded down to the center of the pinwheel. Once all alternating ends are brought to the center, I took a thumb tack and pushed it through the center. I added a pencil to the back so that it had a stick and the eraser helped the pinwheel to stay together. Here is the link that I found the idea and how to make it from.

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Home/Crafts/Craft-Project-How-to-Make-a-Pinwheel.html

The possibilities with the different types of papers are endless. I alternated the two kinds of solid card stock. I'm thinking I need to make some for the 4th of July!!

Have a great afternoon!!

Hugs,

Stephanie

Birthday Party Invitations using Sweet Treats

Hi friends!! I decided to make my daughter's invitations to her fifth birthday party. I came across some really cute ice cream plates, cups, and napkins at Party City so decided to go with an ice cream party! I am so excited to do this!!! We plan on making some homemade ice cream in my ice cream maker and allowing the kids to make their own ice cream in a baggie. I bought this really cute dotted paper that matches the colors in the plates and cups. I wanted the front to say "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!" so I decided to create on my computer a sheet that said nothing but that. I decided to print it onto the dotted paper. The dotted paper is from JoAnn's. It is made by DCWV and is called Dot Colored Lines. I cut it down to allow a border around the card. The card is made from some pastel card stock that I bought from Wal-Mart years ago. It was 8 1/2 x 11" and I just cut it in two to make a standard A2 card. I glued down the dotted paper after printing on it. I then took the Sweet Treats cartridge and cut out the ice cream cone and its layers. The striped green paper is from Colorblok and called Spring Green Plaid. The pink card stock is lipstick from Coredinations. The brown and tan card stock is from coredinations and is called opal and java bean. I believe that the ice cream cone is cut at about 4 1/2 inches. I embossed the cone with the argyle embossing folder to make it look more similar to a cone and add texture. I wanted something different for the cherry and so I glued down a red button. I love it and thought it turned out great!! For the inside, I printed from my computer the actual details of the party. When I was done with that, I added a sundae that I cut from sweet treats. I didn't write down the size of this but it is about 2 to 2 1/2". I used the same paper as from the front. I also added stickles to the cherry to give it some sparkle. Voila!! Easy and simple invitations!

Hugs,

Stephanie

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y Banner

A friend of mine had asked me to create her daughter's first birthday invitations. I posted them a little while back. I offered to make her a birthday banner to go match the party decor. I used the same papers from the invitations. It was really long but was adorable!!! The paper came from JoAnn's. I alternated a striped paper and a dotted paper as the background. I cut a rectangle that was 5" x 10". I then folded them in half and glued ribbon to the top of the inside of the square. I then cut a scalloped circle out of the opposite paper. If the background was striped, the scalloped circle was the dotted paper. I then used Make The Cut software to cut the lettering. The letters are different sizes. I just eyeballed it. The font used was Curlz MT. I used black card stock for the lettering. I wanted it to pop and felt that black was the best color.

OK Friends - I am so EMBARRASSED!!!!! I just clicked on the picture of the banner to bring up a close up of it. I screwed it up!!! The I and the R's background and scalloped circle is the same instead of alternating!!!!!! I can't believe that I didn't catch it or that I didn't even notice it until now. The party was almost 2 weeks ago!!

If you've made a birthday banner, send me a link. I'd like to see how you do them. I'm working on one for my daughter's birthday. I'm going to do a triangular shaped banner. Hopefully, I won't screw this one up too!! I guess that is what late nights will do to you when you're working on projects!

Hugs,

Stephanie

Birthday Invitations

One of my daycare parents had asked me if I could make her baby invitations to her first birthday party. I was so excited!!! I was a bit nervous though because I wanted her to love them!! I wanted it to be over the top too!!! This is what I came up with. The invitations came from a package of plain cards with envelopes. We bought most of the supplies at JoAnn's. The cupcake came from the Doodlecharms cartridge. It was cut at 3 1/2" using the blackout feature. I embossed the icing with the swirl embossing folder. The number one candle came from Sweet Treats and was cut at 1 3/4". I had to cut it twice. Once with yellow paper and then again with the flower paper. I then cut the flame off of the flower candle. The scalloped border is from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge. It is cut to fit the length of the card which is 5 1/2". You can't really tell but there is a layer of transparency that I have printed out from my computer. The layer says Sugar and Spice and everything nice.......That's what little girls are made of. I created this on my computer and printed them onto the correct transparency. I held the card and the transparency together with an eyelet.

This is the inside of the invitation. I printed from my computer the party details which I have covered up at the bottom. I wanted to do a pop up and fell in love with this cake that came from Extreme Cards and Papercrafting. It took a little bit to put together as I had about 25 to make in all but it was worth it. I just love this dotted paper. The scalloped circle is from Sweet Treats again. It is one of the flowers.

Here is a close up of the cake. The one is cut using Sweet Treats and using the shift feature and the one candle button. It is 1 3/4". I discovered a feature on my Cricut. The flip button!! I pushed the flip button and redid the one and it flipped it. I used a wire through the center of the cake to be able to glue a one onto the top of it. It was interesting trying to work out all the details of this but in all, she was happy with the end results and that is all that matters!!!

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day!!!

Hugs,

Stephanie

Birthday Card

Hi Friends and Family! I have a birthday card today that I made for my nephew. He is playing basketball right now so I thought it would be a good idea to make a basketball card. I used the Design Studio and the basketball cartridge to weld the two basketball shapes together. I used the blackout feature of the basketball to get the circle shape. I enlarged it to 5". I copied and pasted the second image and then welded them together. I cut the card using some navel 12 x 12 paper I got from the craft store. I then opened a new page and clicked to show preview. This brought the card image into that page. I then placed the basketball on the page and enlarged it so that it didn't go all the way to the edge of the card. I cut this layer on black cardstock. I glued the black onto the orange card and that was it. I needed an envelope to go with it. I used the Wedding cartridge for the envelope. I used the blackout feature again and chose an envelope. I used DS to again enlarge the envelope to fit the 5" card. I cut it out using School Life (sports) pad. I bought this at JoAnn fabrics. After it was cut out, I scored the lines and folded the envelope. I glued the flaps and there was the envelope. It was a super easy and quick card to make that could be used for anyone who likes basketball or sports.
Hugs,
Stephanie

Snowflake Card

Hello Friends and Family,

I have a snowflake card for you to check out for today. I was inspired by a Christmas card that I had received and then tweaked it a little. I made four of them. Three of them will be used as Thank You cards for Christmas presents that I have received. The last of the four - I plan to send to my Grandma for her birthday in January. I love how these have turned out! They can be any kind of a card really. I used some light blue card stock that I had purchased from Wal-Mart years ago for a baby shower. It was 8 1/2 x 11". I cut it in half to make 4 1/4 x 5 1/2". I folded them in half to make the card. I then embossed the front of the card using the Cuttlebug. The embossing folder that I used was sledding. It has some really cute words related to snow and winter in different blocks. There is also a picture of a snowman and some snowflakes. I cut out a snowflake from a svg file that I found online. It is from scrapcoloring.com. The name of the file is snowflake_thick. The finished size is approximately 3 1/2 x 4 1/2". I used white card stock for the snowflake. I did do a multi-cut of 2 to get smooth clean edges. The next thing that I did was stickle the entire snowflake with crystal stickles. (I just love this color of stickles! I use it all the time.) After it dried, I cut a hole in the edge of one of the snowflake ends. I added a gem to the center of the snowflake to add some pizazz! I then used some white ribbon I have had on hand for forever and tied it around the center of the card. I attached the snowflake. I then pop dotted the center and edges of the snowflake to allow it to stand away from the card and to help the snowflake stay in one place. That is all there is to it! The longest part was waiting for the stickles to dry! Well, hope everyone is having an enjoyable day! Hope you stay warm as well!

Until next time......

Hugs,

Stephanie

My Birthday Surprise!!

Monday was my last day of finals for school for the semester!! YEE!! HAW!! It was also my birthday! :) My husband left to go out of town early Monday morning so we didn't get to do the birthday thing Monday. He sent me some roses and surprised me! My son said, "Mom, someone is parked in front of our house!" (He doesn't like it much when other people park in front of our house. It bothers him that they would park in front of our house.) Then he says, "Mom - it is some old guy and he is coming to our door!" I opened the door and he was carrying a dozen of roses! How sweet!!! My diningroom table smells so good that I have found myself sitting at the table just to enjoy the smell of the roses. I have attached a picture of the roses. Of course, they don't last long and already are starting to bloom and drop but what a sweet thing. My husband hasn't sent me flowers in such a long time! I sure am enjoying them though!! I just hope they last until he comes home so he can smell them and see them looking somewhat nice! Anyways, with school finished for about a month, I have started the creative juices and pumped out some Christmas cards in one evening, gift card holders, and some boxes. I will be posting more later tonight!

Hugs,

Stephanie