It's all in the details . . .

Last night's party was a lot of fun! I hope my 5th and 6th grade guests thought so, too. A lot of the fun for me was in the details.

One of my co-workers had told me she purchased the Cricut Lite Cupcake Wrappers cartridge, so I borrowed it from her last week (thanks, Gail!). When she brought it into me, she also brought her new Halloween Cricut Solutions cartridges, October 31st and Pumpkin Carving. It's so nice having crafty co-workers!! I made wrappers for the party using the Witch cut from the Cupcake Wrappers cartridge, and the creepy zombie-like hand from the Pumpkin Carvings Cartridge. These were a little more time and work than I originally wanted to do, but they turned out pretty cute!

The witch cupcake wrapper cut out beautifully, but they took a long time - especially for a full batch of 24 cupcakes! I used an embossed swiss dot green piece of cardstock to cut out the hands so they would have a bumpy look, but cut off the circle around them. So fun! More party details to come . . .

She's baaaaaaaack . . . with play dough!

HAPPY HALLOWEEKEND!!
I know, I know. I start a blog and then I become MIA for weeks at a time. So sorry to my wonderful followers! October is always a busy month - especially with having a Halloween bash for my girls at the end of it. Last night was the party, so I can breathe a little sigh of relief now! I have been crafting these past couple of weeks, though, so I have some photos to share.

Last weekend I made pumpkin pie play dough with my girls using the Family Fun Magazine recipe. I do have to credit Tammy at Scrappy Critters for the idea to make it. I loved the way she decorated her container and thought it would be a cute little gift for my girls' chapel buddies at school. One buddy is in Kindergarten and the other is in 2nd grade. I know 2nd grade was probably too old for play dough, but then again we had fun playing with it, so why wouldn't a 2nd grader??? And the smell of it was sooooo good!! 

I loved being able to personalize these containers for my girls' chapel buddies. One of the containers is a frosting container (had to cover the Pillsbury Doughboy up on the cap- LOL), and the other is from our local deli (originally holding guacomole-YUM). I used the Mini Monsters cartridge for the pumpkins with googly eyes, patterned paper from the DCWV Autumn Splendor Stack, and added the Isaiah 64:8 bible verse, "But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, you are the potter; and all we are the work of your hand." I thought it was fitting being play dough and all! :)

I also made some more of those awesome pencil holders to attach to the play dough gift - an idea from
Made by Momo.  I can see making these pencil holders for all sorts of holidays! My girls said that both of their chapel buddies enjoyed these Halloween treats. Gotta love hearing that! More posts to come soon. :)

Rest In Pieces . . . Reese's Pieces that is!

Tonight's assignment for myself was to make 8 niece/nephew treats since I will be seeing them at a family party this weekend. I actually keep a binder filled with the holidays and what I do for each of them every year. Otherwise . . . I forget. Last year, I left myself a post-it note with the idea to use "Rest In Pieces" and give Reese's Pieces candy. I'm not sure where I saw that idea, but I was so excited to find it this year in my Halloween tab!

So, the plan was to get Reese's Pieces candy. The only Reese's Pieces in Halloween fun-sized packages that I found in stores were inside a huge value pack with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Fast Breaks. I ended up purchasing the theater candy boxes from Walgreen's instead, figuring the packaging would be easier to work with and would be more of a substantial treat for my nieces and nephews. They could take it to the movies after all!

And when I saw Pinke's "Yummy Bunch" treat packages in My Pink Stamper's Spooky Challenge back in September, her tombstone packaging helped me design the wrapper for my Reese's Piece's boxes! Thanks so much, Pinke!

I made the grave wording on my PC, printed it, then used the Center Point function on my Cricut Expression to cut the graves from the Happy Hauntings cartridge. I also used my PC for the message to my nieces and nephews, then used a punch to cut the 3" scalloped circles. Both of the white grave and circle pieces were sponged with black ink. And the little yellow skull was stickled for some bling action. Such a fun and easy project!

I'm so happy that tomorrow is Friday - YES!! Have a good weekend everyone!

More Halloween Treats!

I'm getting all of the treats that I need to mail done this week, so these 2 were next on my list to make. Don't you just LOVE the dollar section at Target??? All of the goodies in these treat bags come from there: socks, pens, notebooks, glow sticks, a Star Wars Yo-Yo, and a couple of M&M fun packs. Thank you, Target!!

I was so inspired by Lauren who made some adorable favor bags and showed them on her blog back in September. And as I was reading what she used, Lauren led me to Momo who made a video on how she created the pencil holders. These ladies are SO creative! Thanks to both!! And I really like the Scrappy Moms stamp sets. Those are definitely going on my wish list!

My treat bag toppers were made using the patterned paper from K & Company Halloween Designer Mat Pad by Tim Coffey (used a 40% off coupon at Joann- YES!), black cardstock, a Ki Memories clear stamp ("Happy Halloween" on the orange topper), a Studio G clear stamp ("Happy Halloween" on the purple topper), the Cricut Mini Monsters cartridge (spiders - have I been using that cart a bit much lately?), wiggly eyes, and of course had to bling them up a bit with Stickles!

The pencil holders were made using most of the same supplies as the toppers. The only thing different is the Halloween ribbon from Michael's. The spider cello bags were a dollar store find ($1 for 25 bags). So cute! Now I have to dash to the post office tomorrow to mail off these super fun treats to my godkids!

Have a good Thursday! Friday is gettin' here . . .

Hallmark Recordable Storybook Wrapped for Halloween!

Have you seen these adorable recordable storybooks from Hallmark? I purchased the "We're Not Scared Of Anything" book and recorded the story with my daughters last night.

Why don't they have rolled wrap for Halloween anyway??? It seems they have every other theme for rolled wrap out there! I have checked several stores to no avail. So, I settled for wrapping the book in plain 99 cent black wrapping paper from our local party store, then dressed it up with an orange cardstock strip stamped with words and a pumpkin from a $1.99 Studio G clear stamp set (thank you Archiver's - my candy store!). The gift tag ghosts were made with the Cricut Mini Monsters cartridge using the card feature.

The 3 little ghosts that will receive this book are my godkids in North Carolina. We don't get to see them too often, so I'm hoping the storybook with our voices will make them feel closer to us. The book was really easy to record, too. I can't wait for my BFF to tell me how the kids reacted to it! If all goes well, I may get another recordable storybook for Christmas!

Thanks for visiting! Have a great day!

The fun has officially begun . . .

After a very busy, fun-filled Fall weekend, today I FINALLY finished the invitations for my girls' big Halloween bash that's coming up at the end of the month - YES!! They started a new school this year after being at the same one since preschool (it closed after 54 years of Christian education-so sad), so I thought a party to get to know their new friends a little better would be fun. We always have some sort of party, but it's usually a little smaller than the 33 girls (OMG!!) I mean, "ghouls" we're inviting this time around.

When I host my little Halloween parties, I have grown very fond of being "The Witch." So the theme of this year's invitation revolves around me as The Witch, with a pretty bubbling cauldron from the Cricut Mini Monsters cartridge to fancy it up! I told one of my daughters today that "it's all about me!" Then add in a loud, sinister witch cackle, and you can probably just imagine my middle-schooler's look back at me - LOL!

Now that invitations will be delivered to school tomorrow, let the party-planning begin!

Have a great week!

BTW, thank you so much for taking a peek at my new blog! I'm SO excited to have followers!! I was also excited to see comments!! Thanks so much for leaving them! :)

2009 Halloween Banner

Last October when Cricut was new to me, I made this simple Halloween banner using the Paper Doll Dress Up and Celebrations cartridges. I used googly eyes on my characters, hung a few spiders from the webs with black thread (which are hard to see, I know- fun for people to run into though!), and used black ribbon to connect it all.  Banners are all the rage now in the crafting world, so I feel like I should probably make a new and improved one for this year! I love the look of paper rosettes on banners. We'll see how much I can all tackle, though, this month. :)

P.S. My girls and I started October off right by getting Pumpkin Pie Blizzards tonight with our B1G1 coupon from Dairy Queen - YUM!