Family Vacation/Pool Layout

Here's a two-page layout I did tonight of the kids by the pool on our vacation to Varadero, Cuba.  The kids were both wearing wetsuits with floatable padding in them and they looked hilarious!  It looked like they were both really muscular!!  After we got them all ready in their wetsuits, we headed to the pool and the water was way too cold to go swimming!  

I used my new Summer Vacation Cricut cartridge to cut 'Family Vacation'.  I used a lot of glittery DCWV cardstock on this layout and the patterned paper had a lot of bling too!  The palm trees were a dollar store find.  

My First Cricut Cake!

Here are some pictures of my first cake decorated with my Cricut Cake!  I experimented with some cupcakes last weekend and today I thought I'd do a cake for my mom's birthday.  I used Wilton fondant for the shapes and the cake is covered in a buttercream icing.  I'm thinking next time I'll try covering the cake in fondant.  The cartridge I used to cut the flowers was Elegant Cakes.

Stamping Bella Birthday Card

Here's a birthday card I made today using a Stamping Bella stamp, 'giftabella.'  I coloured the image with Copic markers.
When I got home from work tonight, the kids wanted to go to the 'craft room' to do some crafts, so while they made some paper towel roll creations, I made a card! :)

Cricut Cake - Cupcakes

My Cricut Cake arrived late last week and I finally had a chance to play with it today!  I made some simple cupcakes with chocolate icing and tried cutting both gum paste and fondant.  I found the gum paste was quite hard to work with, but the cuts turned out a lot nicer.  I mixed a bit of pink colouring with the Wilton gum paste and it was really hard to get it all a uniform colour, but it turned a pretty shade of pink after a lot of kneading!  The pink butterflies were made with the gum paste.  The green flowers were made with Wilton fondant.  This was so much softer and easier to work with, but the cuts didn't turn out as great.  It was fun experimenting though!

Scrapbooking Garage Sale Finds

I found some great deals at my local scrapbook store's garage sale!  Check out some of my great buys:

Scrapbooking Idea Books

Tons of paper, kits, primas, Martha Stewart Owl punch, Cuttlebug embossing folders/dies

I always have so much fun at scrapbooking sales and you never know what kind of items you will find!  Some of my best buys were new idea books for $6-7 and the Martha Stewart owl punch for $5!  

I also used my Cricut today to help make a 'crazy hat' for camp for my daughter.  The camp is a jungle theme so I cut some leaves from the Dinosaur Tracks cartridge and the monkey is actually from some children's playing cards that we use for crafts.  I think it turned out pretty cute!

Paige modeling her jungle-themed 'crazy hat'!

Cricut Cake On Its Way!

So.... I finally ordered the Cricut Cake yesterday!  I have been thinking about purchasing one for a long time, but wasn't sure, but the more I look at all the creations you can make with it, the more I wanted one, and now one is on its way!  I ordered the bundle through the Shopping Channel which comes with the cartridges Cake Basics and Elegant Cakes and some other bonuses including three packages of Wilton fondant.  I'm so excited for it to arrive!

Today, there was more exciting announced about the Cricut Cake.  There is a new Martha Stewart edition coming out, but it looks like it will just be available through the Home Shopping Network.  I'm not so interested in the machine (it's white, so I think it looks more like the Cricut Expression), but the new Martha Stewart cartridges look awesome!  Here are some pictures (posted on Cricut Cake Facebook site) of cakes, cookies and cupcakes that were created with the new cartridges.  Don't they look amazing?!

Tropical Beach Layout

Here is a quick beach layout I did tonight.  These pictures were from our family trip to Varadero, Cuba, this past January.  I've been trying to use up some older scrapbooking supplies, and this layout was made with a TLC kit that I've had for quite a while.