Christmas Banner

Hi Everyone!

Hope you are all having a crafty and wonderful holiday season. Last night we took Peyton to see Christmas lights at Temple Square. It was cold, but we bundled up warmly and had a lot of fun. It has been a while since we had ventured downtown Salt Lake so it was great to see all the changes that have been going on there. It's going to be really nice when it's all finished. Hopefully it will help bring back small businesses when it's all finished too. All the construction didn't stop there from being Christmas decorations everywhere!!!

So for my sister's baby shower, I borrowed my friend, Marci's standard Cricut. She also let me use some of her lettering cartridges. They came in super handy. And I admit, I totally fell in love with it! So I started talking to my mom about it, and sure enough, that's the very thing she got me for Christmas! I got the standard Cricut too, thinking of price and portability as the key factors. After I had it, I started looking more and more into the Cricut, and found a brand new one they came out with recently called the Cricut Mini. So I have decided to list mine for sale - along with a few other things - on the local classified listing site, ksl.com. And then I am going to get the Mini. I am pretty excited either way though.

But enough about that...

I have been a busy little beaver making all sorts of fun things with my Cricut. Thanks to being trampled on Black Friday, for $10 cartridges, borrower some from Marci, and my hubby's cousin's Bea and Thia, I have been able to do quite a lot. I went down to the American Crafts Warehouse Sale that is going on this entire month and picked up really cute paper by Crate Paper super cheap. I brought it home, and made a darling banner with it!!!

What I love most about the Cricut is how much you can do with just one cartridge.

Supplies Used:

Cardstock - Bazzill Basics Textured, Stampin' Up!
Patterned Paper - Crate Paper
Die Cut Machine - Cricut
Cartridges - Christmas Cheer,
Ribbon - Mostly my stash, May Arts, Stampin' Up!, Offray, tulle, American Crafts, baker's twine, stretchy silver elastic cord is from Stampin' Up!
Little Somethings - bells Stampin' Up!; Red Jewels Reflections; button Autumn Leaves
Adhesives - 3M glue stick, glue gun, foam adhesive, Crystal Effects from Stampin' Up!

Cutest Tree Hugger Ever!

Peyton loved all the lights, but she was slightly disappointed by the lack of blue lights! I know, she is pretty silly. So when we found some blue trees though, she was pretty excited. She ran right up to one so we could take her picture in it.

The Reason for the Season

Part of the road was converted into this garden at the side of Temple Square. It was sort of a big controversy here when it all happened. Literally, the road was torn out and a garden was put in, so traffic has to go around now to get down the road, instead of being able to go through like they used to. I have to admit, it is rather beautiful though. And right now, with it being Christmas and all, they have the big tree, you can see in the distance, plus animals, shepherds, Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and lights everywhere. I love the little bubble lights on top of the water. Those were my favorite. I was really happy, that despite all the people around, I was able to actually get this photo. It's so peaceful and it's such a great reminder what all the fuss around this time of year is actually all about.

Hope you are all enjoying your holidays this year!! Merry Christmas!

P.S. All the photo editing was done using picnik.com. Check it out! It's a great site and it's free!