Owl-themed Birthday Party - The Invitation

Hello my crafty friends!

I've been having so much fun helping my friend plan her "Night Owl" pajama birthday party for her almost 8-year old daughter. I offered to make the invitations and had a blast making them!!

This is what I came up with:

This cute girly owl with birthday

invitation wording goes into . . .

this "sleeping bag!"

And here she is all tucked in the sleeping bag!

Here are both pieces side by side.

And yes, that Hoot-n-Holler saying on the front

is all pop-dotted up for dimension!

Here are all 13 invitations

(12 plus an extra for the scrapbook of course!)!

I used envelopes from past holiday photo card orders that

I never used, and also made return address labels to match.

Love, love, LOVE everything to match!

And here is the whole ensemble

ready to mail off to my friend-YES!

Supplies:

• Cricut Hoot-n-Holler cartridge (for the front saying)
• Cricut Everyday Paper Dolls Cartridge (for the pillow)
• "You're A Hoot" birthday themed clipart purchased from Dreamlike Magic Designs Etsy Store
• Recollections "South Beach" Cardstock package (dark pink, turquoise and lime green) from Michael's
• Georgia Pacific white cardstock
• CK Fun font
• CK Jolly Elf font

So, about the clipart I used. Since I've had my Cricut, I haven't used clipart that much. I talked my crafty Cricut-y friend into letting me purchase the Hoot-n-Holler cartridge for her that was on clearance for $20 at Wal-Mart. I figured I would use it to make the invitations, and then mail the cartridge to her with the invitations when I was done so that she could use it for other party details. Great plan, right? She liked it, so she sent me via text photos of the paper goods she was using for the party for the purpose of choosing colors for the invitation. The photos were pretty good, but I wasn't positive of the colors (AGAIN, I LOVE when everything matches!!), so I hopped online and did a Google search for this party pattern. This is what I found:

So cute, right? Well I go to this blog, Dreamlike Magic, and it turns out Alicia (Dreamlike Magic's owner) makes clipart and such and was selling the matching clipart to this birthday party pattern in her Etsy shop! I so LOVE this paper crafting industry!!! Since I love matching so much, I scrapped the idea of using an owl from Hoot-n-Holler and bought the clipart and digital papers for this party. How could I not?!?!

I did feel guilty about not using the Hoot-n-Holler cartridge, though. It does have some pretty cute owls and sayings on it. So, I fulfilled its purpose by using it for the saying on the front of the sleeping bag. Yay! All is well in my paper-crafting world-LOL!

Since making these invitations, many emails, texts and phone calls have occurred between my friend and I regarding this mega bash. I will be making more fun items for her party so stay tuned! :)

I'm entering this invitation in the Fantabulous Cricut's Challenge # 74 - "Birthday Bash."

Have a great week all!

Lots and Lots of Graduation Owls!

As promised (for a while now- Oops!), here are my graduation cards that were all owl-themed. It was the classic choice since owls are associated with graduations and the fact that owls are so in style now, right?

The first set are traditional graduation cards made tall to fit the checks inside and accented with each graduate's school colors:

I added a strip of cardstock to hold the checks on the inside:

The next set of graduation cards aren't your traditional cards. They are candy wrappers! I purchased my Godson's favorite candy (Kit Kat), and his best friend's favorite candy (Swedish Fish), and created these especially for them:

The opening of the wrapper has the check on one flap and then the conGRADulations message on the other piece. I used a small amount of repositionable adhesive so that the wrappers could be reopened.

The owls from all of the graduation cards/wrappers were cut using the Straight From the Nest Cricut cartridge. The graduation caps were from Everyday Paper Dolls, and the patterned paper was in my stash from many years ago.

I was inspired to make the candy wrapper-style grad cards after seeing Gigi the Cricut Bug's graduation pillow boxes. I really liked that idea, but thought wrappers would better serve my candy than a pillow box. Gigi's were absolutely adorable, though!

Well, I'd say that's it for graduation, but I do have one more card to make that snuck up on me. Since I'm SO DONE with the owls, I had to go with a different theme for this last addition. I will post it soon.

Have a good weekend, fellow crafters!

Just Be-claws Beach Scene Card

Happy Friday everyone! And not only is it Friday, it's a Friday before a 3-day weekend-YES!

Before I head into the holiday weekend's festivities, I wanted to jump into a few of the fun challenges going on right now with this "Just Be-claws" card:

Supplies used:

• Cricut Life Is A Beach cartridge (crab and palm tree)
• Cricut Everyday Paper Dolls cartridge (clouds)
• Circle punch (sun)
• Red, white, light blue, teal, brown, light brown (sand-like, torn), green, light green & orange-yellow cardstock
• "Just be-claws" sentiment from Scrappy Moms' Furry Friends Clear Stamp Set
• Scrappy Moms' Caribbean Baker's Twine
• Black Versa-Mark ink, Ranger clear embossing powder, Mary-Uchida embossing gun
• Fiskar's wave edge scissors
• Stampin' Up Dimensionals
• Stampin' Up Crystal Effects (glossy effect on crab)
• Wiggle eyes for crab

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:
1. Scrappy Mom's Terrific Tuesday Challenge  - Make a project with the Cricut Life Is A Beach cartridge!
2. Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Me Monday # 61 "Blue Skies" - Make a card or project using the colour blue and at least one cloud.
3. Little Red Wagon's Challenge # 81 - Use a tree on your project.

I hope everyone enjoys the Memorial Day holiday! And thank you to all who serve our country to protect our freedom. God bless! 

Golfer's Birthday Card for my Dad

Next weekend is my Dad's birthday! When thinking of my Dad, my mind almost always goes to golf since he loves the sport so much. He doesn't play that often anymore due to bodily ailments and having to care for my Mom all of the time, but he still watches it on TV and keeps up with all of the pro players!

Here is my simple card for him:

All of the cuts came from the Cricut Everyday Paper Dolls cartridge. I was actually grabbing for my Sports Mania cartridge when I saw the little golf cart on the spine of the Everyday Paper Dolls cartridge. I completely forgot that it had golf images on it!

I embossed the golf ball with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, but flipped it to show the debossing to mimic the dimples of the golf ball. Then I stamped "Happy Happy Birthday" and "father" using My Pink Stamper stamps. I would have preferred Dad, but father is what I had, so I went with it.

I am entering this card in the So Saturdays Challenge #9 at Card Creations and More By C, which I discovered through Gigi the Cricut Bug. Thanks, Gigi! Gosh I love that girl's blog! Her card is way better, but I'm still just trying to dabble in this challenge thing. It definitely pushes me to get crafting more! :)

Ok, off to work on teacher gifts for another challenge. Have a great week, my fellow crafters!!