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!

What's The Title Of That Layout?

Hey everyone! Hope you are having just as good of a lazy Sunday afternoon as I am. I am loving this slightly cooler weather and looking forward to fall! It's my favorite time of year - even though I really hate winter :-). As I stated before, I have been making lots and lots of tags! Plus I have also done a few scrapbook pages. Love getting back into the crafty swing of things for sure.

On my previous post I posted a picture of the pin cushion I made for my crafty twin, Amber Lafata. I posted it super late at night and failed to mention that I stole :-) the picture from her blog! The shame! He he he ! Love ya Amber. If you haven't checked out her blog, do so as soon as you finish reading my post! She has more pin cushion jars and they are super super cute!

As I mentioned, I have mad a few new scrapbook pages, so I figured I would show them. As my title suggests, something crazy is up with one of the titles to my scrapbook pages. I use a lot of Thickers from American Crafts - which I have mentioned several times how much I love them! But when I was making my page  yesterday, I didn't have enough of the one alphabet to finish my title. So for now I have it with the letters missing :-(. I will have to buy more letters to get the title finished. Thank goodness for Robert's 40% coupons!!!!!

So here is the layout that I did yesterday:

There is glare on the picture, but the background is leaves from trees. We were on the Train at Hogle Zoo. I love this picture. Peyton has such a huge love for life! Hence the title name, but as you can see I need some more letters to complete the title to actually say that. We had a lot of fun at the zoo that day but this is probably my favorite picture from the whole outing. I just can't get enough of how much she loves to learn about everything and anything. She gets so excited to learn and find out as much as she can.

Here are some more detailed pictures of the layout:

I was inspired by a favorite blogger of mine, Maggie Holmes. She has such an awesome style. About a week ago she made a post showing her kitchen table covered in layouts. She admitted once she makes her layouts she has a hard time actually putting them in albums. So she has stacks and stacks of them in her house! I decided then and there, that I was going to CASE each layout on the table that was visible! I couldn't help it! I love all of the pages! So this is my second one that I did off of her table. Here is the link to the post that I am referring to. Check it out! It's an awesome post! If you go to it, on the table, I started on the top right hand corner of the photo. This layout is the second one in on the top row. It looks quite different than mine does. But I did use some of the same elements. I broke out my acrylic paints and pained on the cardstock - a technique that I have loved and admired for quite some time but never tried. Also, I used a combination of dies and punches to create the border on the right side. They have 2 things in common. They are all Stampin' Up! brand and they are all labels. I can't get enough of labels right now! Label punches, dies, chipboard! Love them!

Here are the details:

Cardstock: Wild Wassabi, Daffodil Delight {love this new color!}, Kiwi Kiss {retired color}, Close To Cocoa {retired}, Whisper White and Very Vanilla from Stampin' Up!

Patterned Paper: Letterbox line from American Crafts {green and white polka dot fabric paper is Dear Lizzy from American Crafts}

Stamps: Medallion background and tags Stampin' Up!; Journal spot Autumn Leaves

Thickers: American Crafts

Chipboard: flowers, circles label, bird Letterbox line from American Crafts; flourish Maya Road

Punches and Dies: scallop and pinking hearts borders Stampin' Up!; lace border punch Martha Stewart; label dies all from Stampin' Up!, Butterfly embosslet Stampin' Up!

Flower: Prima

Ink: Chocolate Chip, Pretty In Pink Stampin' Up!

Acrylic Pain: Vanilla and Pink Making Memories

Ribbon: blue polka dot grosgrain American Crafts; skinny pink grosgrain {my stash}

On to the next layout....

I have been trying to get inspiration for titles from my daughters favorite Nick Jr shows. There is so much my little toddler loves from that channel, so where better to turn to than her favorite channel. I got this title from the show "Little Bill". There is an episode where Bill has to perform in the school play and his little class sings this cute little song called Spring Is Here. I couldn't resist the urge to use it for the title of these pictures from an afternoon spent at Thanksgiving Point's Tulip Festival.

Here are some more pictures:

I love the mini acrylic albums from Maya Road! I couldn't help but use one of the butterflies from it here on this page!!!

As I mentioned before, I got inspiration for this layout from Maggie Holmes. This layout is on the top right corner of her photo of her table covered with layouts. It's on the top row.

Here are the details:

Cardstock: Melon Mambo, Chocolate Chip, Daffodil Delight Stampin' Up!

Patterned Cardstock: Letterbox from American Crafts

Thickers, Stickers and Flair: American Crafts

Stamps: Letterbox American Crafts

Circles, label, photo corner and Border Strip stickers: Stampin' Up!

And there you have it! One complete page and one just about completed. Hopefully it will be sooner than later.

Hope you are having a great lazy summer just like I am!