Let us eat CAKE . . . Beautiful CAKE!!

Ok, so I promised about a month ago I would do a post on my daughter's 1st cake using the Cricut Cake mini machine that she got for her birthday. Well, here it is! Better late than never, right???

Here is my oldest daughter making her first cake for the occasion of her Dad's 40th birthday:

The fitting of her homemade marshmallow fondant

(thank you, MPS Robyn for the recipe!)

Trimming the excess with one of her Cricut Cake tools . . .

Then applying "The Big 40" phrase cut from the

Life's A Party Cartridge made with gum paste.

She used black gel (the edibles version of Stickles-LOL)

 for the black outlining . . .

Voila! Such a beautiful cake!! It tasted great too!

We had colored flame candles to enhance her wonderful design!

He may not seem like he's happy (too bright of flash, Jen!), but my husband was very happy with his daughter's homemade cake! Hooray! We now have another baker in the house!!

 

Valentine Cards 2011

Here is my valentine card for this year sent to close family showcasing the photo shoot torture for my girls!

I must admit that this card is not one of my faves that I've made. I had it in my head that I would use the conversation hearts from the Simply Charmed Cricut cartridge, but the card turned out a bit plain and the color of the prints were off from my cardstock colors. But, I like the photos and at this point in my jam-packed life, it got the "It'll have to do" stamp of approval from me. I seem to be doing that a lot lately!!

 The font I used for the inside of my cards is called Hank BT.

Another valentine card I made was just me playing around with ideas for a really good friend of mine who is having a Valentine tea party for her daughter this coming weekend. It is an invitation using the Once Upon a Princess cartridge. The hearts were stickled onto the paper doll's dress and the tea pot. I so wish I were going to this party! My friend has been sending me photos of crafty things she's made for it so I just know it will be a FABULOUS event! Her daughter is one lucky girl . . . :)

Well, that's it for this post. We're getting toward the weekend, so enjoy it my paper-loving friends!!

Valentine Teacher Appreciation Luncheon Favors

This week my daughters' school is having a teacher appreciation luncheon, so I made these little favors for it with my daughter! The theme of the luncheon is "comfort food," so there are a lot of yummy dishes being made! Thankfully I'm not doing any cooking, but I thought that being able to take a couple of chocolate mints back to their desks afterward would be nice.

I used the following:

•  Forever Young Cricut cartridge to make the holder (pg 72, purse creative feature cut at 5 1/4")
• Red cardstock
• A sheet of Recollections white glitter chipboard-like cardstock from Michael's for the hearts
• Designer's Calendar Cricut cartridge to cut heart
• Valentine ribbon from Michael's
• Ziggy Zoe font wording printed on white cardstock and punched using the Stampin' Up small tag punch
• 2 Andes Mints per holder

There is a bible verse on the tag, which is Colossians 3:23:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.

Then below the verse it says:

Thank you for caring for our children with all your heart!

All 36 favors plus an extra for me to keep are all done and ready to be delivered to school this week. These were very fun to make!

Have a good week fellow crafters!!

My One Word for 2011

Did you make a resolution on New Year's Day? If so, have you stuck with it? Like many, I've usually broken my resolution by this time in January in the past. But this year is different.
I was recently listening to my favorite radio station,
K-Love ,where the Morning Show's Lisa and Eric were challenging their listeners to chose ONE word for the year instead of a resolution.

Myoneword.org says this:

"The challenge is simple: lose the long list of changes you want to make this year and instead pick ONE WORD. This process provides clarity by taking all of your big plans for life change and narrowing them down into a single thing. One word focuses on your character and creates a vision for your future."

I thought this was a very good idea for me since I'm just not successful at the resolution thing. So, I thought very carefully and chose my word for 2011:

TRUST

Last year had many speed bumps for me, or maybe better termed as road blocks. I believe that those road blocks would have been easier to bear if I had my trust where it belongs - in God.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." Proverbs 3:5

To put this word in front of me every day so I work on my trusting the Lord with all my heart, I created this banner:

It is now hanging in my home office - my "happy place" where I spend most of my time. The hope is that when I come into this room each day, I look at it, reflect upon where I'm at in my walk with God, and continue to get stronger in that goal.

On to the crafty part. I used patterned paper from the Die Cuts With a View Stack 6, white and blue cardstock, light blue ribbon, Cricut Birthday Bash cartridge for the banner pieces, and Cindy Loo for the letters.

I really do love it! It was fun to make and I hope it serves its intended purpose. Now go jump over to myoneword.org and pick your word for 2011!

Have a great weekend all!!

I Survived the Ice Skating Birthday Party!!!

I SURVIVED!! I survived the 80s-themed ice skating party with 14, YES 14, pre-teen girls!!!!! The party turned out great thankfully, but I'm pretty happy it is behind us. Not that those adorable pre-teens were that much work, but I've been extremely busy at my job so being able to check something off my list is a very good thing lately.

I didn't go as crazy as I originally wanted to with crafty things for the party, but I'm glad I didn't. The party room we had at the rink was already decorated like to the max! I did make favor bags and a great CD filled with all 80s girl band songs, though. We even had the rink play those tunes during the cosmic skate!

I really wanted to utilize a fun holder from one of my Cricut cartridges, but the items that needed to go into the favor were rather big and heavy: the legwarmers, the beads, the pretend microphone, the BRB Banana anti-bac (my daughter had to tell me what the BRB stood for- that was a "duh!" moment), and the container of 15 glow bracelets. So I thought saving time & money and having something durable like a standard white gift bag would be best.

I decorated the bags with each girl's name done in the Neon 80s font and Winter Woodland ice skates to match the invitation (see invitation HERE). I also tied on cute new ribbons from Michael's Fit To Be Tied Collection. Like totally awesome! Fer Sure!!

This is what the cosmic skate looked like. Pretty fun, huh? Another successful kid birthday party conquered-YES! Have a good week everyone!!