Yesterday's project! I've been wanting to make some changes to the plain ordinary back splash in the kitchen for awhile now. White is not my style! But I didn't see the SO letting me rip it down and put up something new "When it's still perfectly good". So I had bought the Kate's Kitchen Imagine cartridge for my recipe scrapbook a few months back. I'd been looking for some time at it, just thinking how cool the images fit my retro love in the kitchen. I have vintage small appliances that I love and use and if I EVER get to remodel my kitchen it will look along the lines of s 50's kitchen! I love this quote and I decided to cut it out of vinyl using my Cricut Expression 2 and the Paper Lace 2 font. I did not use transfer paper with this because I wanted the tipsy look of the letters so I just free handed them on the wall with brown vinyl. Then I found 2 images on the Imagine cartridge that had the same color scheme and especially the same background mat and printed them on Imagine vinyl. I love this look and the great part is the fact that if I get tired of it I can remove it easily! Whatcha think?? Now I'm doing some different images to finish out sections of the back splash with the Imagine vinyl that are bare and I think might need a pop of color!

The explosion box....I went out of my usual comfort zone and decided to tackle one. It is the "cut it free for a week" design in the CCR (Cricut Craft Room). I decided to try the first one out of some paper scraps I had in my stash so I didn't ruin any "good" stuff in the event that I threw up my hands defeated! I'm pretty pleased with the results and will be trying out a new design today!

When you untie the ribbon and remove the lid it expands (explodes) and shows the contents.

There are 3 layers inside with 4 sides- so 12 spots for pictures- words- embellishments- the design is up to you!! I used oned of my precious Prima flowers for the bottom. It was a perfect fit and embellishment for the granddaughters' pictures!

The flower on the outside was cut with the Flower Shoppe cartridge and the box with the Mini Books. I'm thinking that this is a new must have cartridge for me! The box is about 2 inches and I'm thinking how cool it would be to fit a jewelry box inside for a special Mother's Day, proposal or even Christmas gift!

Addy made a card!! And please disregard the chocolate face!! lol It was Valentine's Day after all. She had some chocolate pudding that she "slurped" instead of using a spoon! But I cut everything and she made the choice of design. I'm pretty proud of a 5 year old effort!!

the inside of SO's card

Ahhh the dreaded V-day. A day that I usually forget about until the last moment! I was super busy the day before and didn't get the SO's card made. I opened up the laptop to find a beautiful card from him yesterday so I knew I had to make something. So into the Craft Room I went. I decided to cut out the squirrel since he loves the outdoors and knew he would like something that was less lovey dovey! I also picked a background for my plain white card from my Imagine cartridges and whipped this baby out in less than 30 minutes. Not too shabby for a 30 minute job!

This is my scrapbooking buddy- Roly Poly. If I am at my desk and he's in the house here he comes!! He's got to sit somewhere on my desk and usually it's the one place that I'm trying to work...see my Cutterpede and Cricut spatula. He's hiding them! But he's great company- he loves to watch everything I do!

My Mom had a quintuple bypass in September and complications after that. It was a really scary time for all of us and I realized that Addy didn't have a picture of her and her great grandmother in her album. I remedied that rather quickly and made this layout to complete her album and I just love it! It used a very soft background paper, Frame of Mind Cricut cartridge for the frame and Jasmine cartridge for the lettering. I finished it up with some Prima flowers (I love Prima! The flowers are so beautiful that I usually horde them!!) and a Prima Say It In Pearls rhinestone strip. Stickles are one of my go to items for the granddaughter's (or any girly page) and I used Copper to outline the letters and make some glitter accents on the frame. There is also a strip if ecru colored crochet type lace right under Nana's Baby that is not showing well in this shot but runs the width of the paper.

Joy= it doesn't just have to be for Christmas! I still have this up on my door in the living room. I guess that I should take it down- but it just says Joy. I have Joy every day, not just during the Christmas season. This was a breeze to make! I took some foamboard that I had left from mounting pictures and used my Cricut E2 to cut the letters. I went into Craft Room (CCR for future reference) and used the Cricut alphabet that is preloaded into the E2 and chose complimentary patterened paper. Any alphabet cartridge will do as long as it will make a good size letter.. I did a fill to page and cut on a 12x12 mat. I then used the letter for a template and traced it onto the foamboard. Using an exacto knife I carefully cut out each letter. I then inked the edges with some Tim Holtz Distress ink in Walnut Stain. I used my glue tape gun- I swear that tape holds anything- and glued the paper onto each letter. I put the J and the Y on the bottom and taped the O on top. Using some spare ribbon that I had laying around I looped it around the O and tied a pretty bow. An awesome project that took less than an hour to complete!

One of my newest layouts! It's got a pretty busy background- not something that I normally do but I just decided to go for it! I used my new Cricut Folk Art cartridge to make the scalloped edge and my Cricut Imagine to make the title (Lori's Garden for the flowers and Best Friends for the title) and flowers. I'm in love with this one!

I haven't blogged in forever! Life deals you complications sometimes that just make your brain go blank and literally I forgot I had a blog! Well back to it! I've applied for a scrapbook design team and you have to have a blog to enter. Lucky me! I remembered that I had set one up last year to showcase stuff I'd made. And this has been a busy crafting year for me on top of everything else! So watch out world- I'm back!! :)