Christmas Wagons

Well, I asked my grandson what he wanted for Christmas about a month ago. "Well Mimi, let me think about it." Later he came back and told me that he would like a little wagon. Not a big one but a little one that he could use when he digs. He loves to work outside digging for worms.

Well, I thought how hard could that be........boy was I wrong. I bought the little wagon I had about 5 years ago. I looked everywhere. All I could find was wagons about 12" x 7"......too little. I was looking for something around 24" x 12". Well I should have known to just "google" I finally found the wagons. What I was looking for was called Tot Wagons. I found them from Morgan Cycle. I ordered them and had them within a week. I was pretty excited too, they were plain red, which meant I could decorate.......so, here's what you start with.

Two unassembled Morgan Cycle Tot Wagons.


First I used the Robo Master software that comes with my Craft Robo and designed decals for the side and back of the wagons. I used the dingbat font "Vehicle decals flame art". I designed flames for the side of the wagon and then added the boys names to each wagon.


The back of the wagons have the boys' last names on them. The wagons turned out super cute. I can't wait until they get them for Christmas.

Baby Quilt

Well I'm going to be a Great Aunt, for the 3rd time so I made a sweet little rag quilt for my new Great Nephew. I love making rag quilts. They are so simple and turn out so nice. Photo isn't that great. The quilt is made of all flannel. I used a jungle print, giraffe print, plaid and a solid. I did learn one trick researching on the web. If you use flannel for the batting you cut it the same size as the squares and it's not necessary to actually quilt the squares. What a time saver. I made this quilt in 4 days, working only in the evenings.

Through the eyes of a child

My grandson snatches up the camera when ever he gets a chance. I decided to highlight some of his work. I particulary like the picture of Papa.

I designed the film strip myself and cut it out on my craft robo. The heart was a free file that I downloaded from Ileana's Blog. check it out here
http://iscrapdesigns.blogspot.com/

Memories Of Brad

It's taken me a while but I finally put together a book about my brothers short battle with cancer. I had journaled everything on my personal blog, which I no longer have and I didn't want to lose all those memories. Some people as, why do you want to remember. Well, not all the times were bad. We had some fun times and it is memories with my brother. No matter what the memories, I don't want to forget a minute with him.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Halloween Treats

Here's a special little halloween treat container that I made with my craft robo. Have I told you how much I love this little machine.

All of the cut outs are dingbat fonts that I cut out with black vinyl. They work fantastic on the craft robo. The hardest part of this whole project was finding the candy corn. Can you believe it!

Car Magnets

Ever thought of expanding your craft knowledge to business. Well we started with the busines first, then my scrapbook addiction started. After playing and learning to use my craft robo, I decided, I could do this, large scale. We have been contemplating expanding what we do in our home based business, which is large format printing, so what could be better. We found a Roland Vinyl cutter on ebay and nervously purchased it. I wasn't completely sure I could do this but I did. It's actually pretty simple, and is along the same lines as using my craft robo, just on a larger scale.

Here's a car magnet that I made for my cousin's business.....and if you need any home improvement, they are the people to call.

Baby Shower Accessories

Ok I know I start every posting about my craft robo this way but did I tell you how much I love this tool. This is the best scrapbooking investment I have ever made. Here's my most recent. I had a girlfriend ask me to help make baby shower invitations. She wanted a baby bottle. I purchased this baby bottle and made a few modifications to it. I'm sure you realize this but the black background wasn't part of the card, only used it so the bottle would show up on the scan.


I also had another baby shower that I did and made some accesories. I also found some clip art and added the babies name. I love the feature of print and cut that you can do with the robo. You print out the clip art and then feed it through the craft robo and it cuts it out for you.

A fantastic designer at paperthreads.com, Jen Adkins, had a free file and that's how I made the pacifier.


I glued the baby bottles and pacifiers on to candy. A really cute accent.


I cut out letters on my robo of the baby's name and made a fun table decoration by hanging the letters on ribbon with mini clothes pins. The mommy and daddy to be loved it and decorated the baby's room with it.

Someday

Here's a layout that I recently did. Gotta tell you it is a total scraplift from a fantastic scrapbooker Dee. When I saw her layout I fell in love with it. I especially love the poem. Getting pics of the boy's feet was a little challenging but after about 20 pics I got one that worked. I tried taking pics in the grass but the baby didn't like the feel of grass on his feet so that plan didn't work.

How to Stuff a Wedding Pinata

Well, that's the question. How to stuff a pinata for a wedding rehearsal! The theme for the rehearsal dinner was "Mexican Fiesta". Well at a Mexican Fiesta you have to have a pinata.

We stuffed the pinata with Hershey "Kisses", "Bliss" candy, candy that looks like "Wedding Rings", Mr & Mrs Mints, and then we made some really cute bottles of wine. That's right. Bottles of wine. Don't worry, they were plastic bottles.

I purchased the bottles from the following website:
Essential Supplies

Here's the cute label. The poem was written by a dear friend Debbie to the Bride and Groom.




Notice the bottle in the middle has a red band. Those were special for kids and pregnant guests. Cranberry juice. Pinata was a big "hit"

Wedding Invitations

Just recently finished some beautiful wedding invitations. This is for a friend's son and his fiance. With the bride to be, my friend Carolyn and myself....well also input from the groom to be, we brain stormed and came up with these very beautiful wedding invitations.

First we stamped with a leaves stamp on white cardstock. We then scanned it in and adjusted it's opacity in photoshop elements. We wanted the burgandy leaves in the background. One problem of changing the opacity only was it made the burgandy look pink. Had to also adjust the levels so that it would be a deeper color. Once we had the leaf background we added the text using Murray font.

Added a beautifuly ribbon down the side and attached it with dark copper brads.

The leaves were cut out of copper scrapbook paper on my craft robo and then attached to the invite on the ribbon with glue dots. Turned out perfect, don't you think.



To tie the RSVP cards to the invite we added the same burgandy leaves to the background.

Retro Santa

Played around with a free GSD file that I downloaded from http://mamawslegacy.com Very cool file. Here's a sample of a Christmas cards that I made. I embossed this one with snow flakes.

Fun with Digi

Well not sure what's going on but my creative juices have been flowing. Here's another digital layout that I did. Photo of my mom and I. My mom made our outfits. Aren't we cute.



I also did another layout of my brother and I. I journaled his battle with cancer on my personal blog and decided that I wanted to have a lasting memory so I have started creating layouts. This is my first layout of my brother. The journaling is my entry that I made on my blog.

Christmas Cards

I'm getting way ahead of myself, can you believe it. Starting to work on my Christmas Cards!

New Digital Layouts

I've been busy this weekend getting caught up making some digital layouts. Here's a few that I got done.

The first layout is of Jackie and her first Triathlon. Good thing that I haven't printed this yet because I just realized I spelled Triathlon wrong.





I had a challenge to do a layout about the angels in my life. Here are 3 of them.



The last layout is a fun Saturday afternoon at the lake with friends.

Wedding Celebration Invitation

Have I said how much I love my Craft Robo. I'm sure I have. We are having a party for my Son and my future daughter in law prior to their wedding out of state.

I really like how they turned out. Standard white cards, red roses scrapbook paper cut to fit. I then matted one of their engagement photo on black card stock. Topped it off with lettering mounted on pop dots that I printed and cut with my craft robo.

My Craft Room

Ok, it's not normally this clean but I have been working the last 2 days to get my room organized. I thought I would share my ideas for organization.

First of all, I share my craft room with my kitty, Jesse, so even his house got in on the action. He doesn't seem to mind. I took the door off of the closet so that I could have full access and hung a shower curtain. Makes easy access the the closet.


The wood cabinet is an old computer desk that holds my sewing machine. Nothing like recycling furniture that you no longer need. The baskets on the shelf hold the current projects that I am working on.


I bought the shelves that hold all my stamps at a garage sale for $5 total. That was a great find. The large wood cabinet is a shelf that we had made about 25 years ago so that our console tv fit perfect. Needless to say we don't have the console any longer but the shelf works great.

The best thing is the shoe organizer hanging on the back of the door. Helps hold misc things that don't fit anywhere else. The blue thingy(don't know what it is called) holds photos. I found it at an outlet store for $1 in the teachers section so I'm not sure it's original use but it works great for displaying photos waiting to be scrapped.


Little white basket by the door holds all swaps that are coming in so I can keep track of them.

Graduation Card

I have a friends daughter getting ready to graduate from the University of Kansas, GO JAYHAWKS. I did a graduation card for her using a Jayhawk stamp from Morning Star Stamps. I also added a graduation hat which is a Sizzlet that I trimmed down to size to fit the Jayhawk. Then colored in the tassel with my White Signo pen. (Love that Pen)



Congrats Maria Elena

Candle Holder

I previously decorated a glass candle holder with my Craft Robo. Well, it worked perfect for the wedding shower but it was the wrong color for the rehearsal dinner. We decided to change the color to a "hot pink" which will match perfectly. The font is Lauren Script and the flowers are from the Silhouette CD Wildflower. I actually took one flower from the CD and made 2 others in different sizes.

Special Tribute to a Great Aunt

My husbands Aunt recently passed away and prior to her passing we had been cleaning out her house. Growing up in the depression must be a trait that people hoard things and buy in multiples. I found quite a few rosaries and decided that I would pass them out to each of her Great and Great Great nephews and nieces. Here's the card that I attached to the rosaries.

Craft Robo not just for Scrapbooking

Have I told you how much I love my craft robo. It is so versitile. I've used it for everything from making layouts, decorating my daughters wedding, to making cards. Today, I used it to decorate my centerpieces for a wedding shower. I started with a plain glass candle holder. I then cut a red heart and vinyl lettering from red vinyl and applied to the glass. I gotta tell you, it was a huge hit. So much so my sister is using them for the rehearsal dinner.


Heart is from the Silhoette Sweetheart Portfolio CD and the font is Lauren Script, one of my favorite.

Fun Shower Invitations

Ok, these are fun wedding shower invitations that I did for my nephew's shower. They were done all digital and I added the text and border in Photoshop Elements. I went with the same color scheme and "Dreams Do Come True" as the theme for the shower.

I Did It --- I Did It

Having a little more time to play with my craft robo I decided to try and convert a cute jpg file to a file that could be printed and then cut on the craft robo. Keep in mind that a Silhouette uses the same software and you should be able to follow the same instructions.

I was successful and it is so simple.

I can't take credit for it. Click HERE for the directions.

First of all I downloaded a file from PC Crafter. They have some adorable clip art.

Next I followed the directions and here is my results.





I have a little bit more experimenting and learning to do and I definite can see that I need a new blade too. This poor machine has had a lot of abuse during my learning process. I'm just so excited that I had to post.

Photo Books

I love doing photobooks. They are so quick and easy to make and are great gifts. Here's my latest done for a friend.

Click to View The ABCs of Lauren

Click to View Jackie & Brandon's Wedding

Scor-Pal

Ok, I did it. I purchased the Scor-Pal. I was able to purchase it today with a 30% off coupon at Archivers. I know I didn't really need it......but did I want it. Of course. I have wedding invitations to work on have they have 3 folds on each invitation. I decided this would save me a tremendous amout of time. Here's a video



Once I have time to play, I will post some things that I have made with my new tool.

Craft Robo / Silhouette

I'm so excited. My friend Deb has just purchased a Silhouette and it has gotten me inspired to pull out my Craft Robo and start learning more about it. The Scrapbook Page actually has free classes on how to use it. The Craft Robo is identical to the Silhouette. If you didn't see a label they would look identical. They also use the same software.

I've had my Craft Robo about 2 years and have done very little with it. Sorry, but last year was a crazy year and time just got away from me. What I have done was fairly easy to do and it is a fantastic tool.

I've added some likes to my side panel on where I go to get free files. There are 1,000s of files out there and there are lots of yahoo groups that you can join that have gsd files to share. As soon as I get a little organized I will post some of mine that I have created and I would be happy to share my files with you.