My Busy Week

Last week was our spring Book Fair at school. This time around, my two Book Fair co-chairs and I decided to tackle the Spare Change contest along with the Book Fair. We actually held this the week before the book fair. The idea is that the kids bring in their "spare change" and at the end of the week we add up all of the different classes and the top classes get a gift certificate for a free book to the fair. 
Since the theme of our book fair was the Book Fair Diner, I used my cricut to cut out these ice cream scoops to show our progress all week. Every day we earned $100 in spare change, we added a scoop to our cone. If we made our goal of $1,000 for the week, we got to put the cherry on top. As you can see by the picture below, we made our goal!!! 

I cut all of the letters and the scallop border around the window out with my cricut too. And now that I'm looking at the picture, I can see that we forgot to put how much we collected for Free-For-All Friday. We were also setting up the book fair on Friday, so I think that got lost in all the other things going on by that time. Oh well! 

This spring fair went much smoother for us than the fall fair. The fall fair was the first one for the three of us and was a huge learning experience. We were like pros this time around! 

The picture below shows Spencer shopping with his class at the fair. The picture isn't the best, but it is the only one I have. 

I forgot to get a picture of Connor shopping. :-(


I spent pretty much all of last week at the school. So I haven't been able to do much creating lately. I hope to get back in the swing of things soon. I have some birthday cards to make for this month. Plus one of the message boards I visit is holding a Scrap Olympics this month. I already missed the first week of competition, but I'm hoping to enter a few events. Since I was the big loser in our family Olympics the boys held here last week, I'm hoping to redeem myself in the Scrap Olympics! 


Thanks for visiting me! 

My DIY Stickles Storage

For awhile I have been trying to figure out a way to store my Stickles upside down. I know this is the preferred way of storing them so that way they are ready to go when you need them. 
Yesterday, I was in my scrap room cleaning it up and reorganizing some things, when my lightbulb went off! I finally thought of what would work for me. So then of course, I stopped organizing and started making my new Stickles storage. 
After much trial and error, it finally ended up like this:

And I love it! 

This is basically what I used to make it. My Cricut, Gypsy, and a left over plastic divider from my Cropper Hopper paper holders. The baskets hanging on the wall are from Ikea. What I designed is a plastic holder to be placed in the middle of the basket to hold my Stickles upside down. 

I designed this on my Gypsy. I made a rectangle shape to fit snugly inside the basket. Then I placed nine circle holes that fit the Stickles. This is the part that took some trial and error. I kept thinking I had the measurements right on the rectangle, but then after I cut them, they would be slightly too small or slightly too large. 

This is what the plastic insert looks like. It fits perfectly in the basket right on top of the middle bar. I cut two for each basket and glued them together to make it sturdier. 

And here are a couple of close-ups. Since I have 3 baskets hung, that gives me room to store 27 bottles. I have 5 open spots right now, so I have a little room to grow.  

I realize this won't work for everyone, but it was the perfect solution for me! Those baskets and rails from Ikea are super cheap and since the plastic inserts are something I don't use for their intended purpose, this was a very economical way for me to store my Stickles upside down! 


If this is something you think you might want to make, here are the measurements I came up with. 

Rectangle:

Width - 4.81

Height - 3.61

Circle

Width - .84

Height - .75

I set my Cricut blade on 6 with Pressure on Max and the Speed on Medium. I did a multi-cut of 7 times on the plastic. 


It took a while to cut them, but I just set it and went onto to do other things while it was working. It didn't cut them all of the way through, but it was enough for me to punch the shapes out of the plastic. I do not have a deep-cut blade for my Cricut, so I did this with just a regular blade. It would probably work a lot easier with a deep cut blade. 


I'm so happy with my new storage! I love the way it looks!


Thanks again for visiting me! Have a great day!

A Few Cards...

These are some simple, easy, fast cards that I made last week. Even though they are pretty simple, I thought they turned out nice. 

This is a Valentine card I made for a friend of mine. I stamped the hearts, filled them with red stickles, tied the twine around the red cardstock and then finished it off with some black lines to frame it. 

And this is the birthday card I made for my brother. Happy Birthday Craig!  I stamped the candles, colored them in with Copics, tied the twine around the top and stamped a Happy Birthday sentiment inside. Super Easy! 


I think I like this easy approach to card making. Sometimes I get too caught up in making bunches of layers and adding all kinds of elements. Less can be more! 


Thanks for visiting me! 

Happy Valentine's Day

This is what I received this morning:

A mix CD of some of my favorite songs and handmade cards! This is an awesome Valentine gift! 

Here is the inside of my beautiful cards. 

And the songs on my CD. The boys have been paying attention in the car to what songs I like and came up with this idea all on their own. Chris helped them out with getting songs on Itunes and burning the CD. 


Thanks boys! I love my CD!

Spongebob Valentine's Day Boxes

I love my Cricut. Love it! I recently purchased the Spongebob Cart because I have two Spongebob loving boys and I thought they would have some fun with it. Who knew I would have so much fun making Valentine's Day boxes with it!


First up is Connor's Box. He wanted Spongebob's Pineapple house. I plugged in my Gypsy with the Spongebob cart loaded in and started cutting out my pieces! Easy Peasy! 

I think it turned out so cute! I painted a shoe box black and then added my cut pieces to it. 

The heart was cut from the Gypsy Wanderings cart already loaded onto the Gypsy. I then just stamped the Happy Valentine's Day to make Spongebob a

little sign. 

The door opens and that is where the kids can drop their valentines for Connor into it. 

Spencer chose the Krusty Krab for his box. This wasn't quite as easy. There are lots and lots of pieces to the Krusty Krab. It was like putting a puzzle together after I cut everything out. 

And I made a Valentine sign for Mr. Krabs too. The hole is on top of the box for the kids to drop their Valentines in. I was afraid the doors to the Krusty Krab would be a little too small to accomodate the Valentine treats Spencer will be getting. 

I have been busy all week making these boxes and a few cards. I will post the cards later this week or weekend. I have to wait for the recipients to receive them first! 

Thanks again for visiting me! And Happy Valentine's Day! 

Testing my iPhone

I finished the Christmas Mini Album that Nikki sent me last month. I thought I would see how it looks with me doing everything from my Iphone. I took the pics on my phone, edited them on my phone & uploaded it all to the blog from my phone.
I know that it probably won't look as good, but wanted to give it a try!

Thanks for visiting me!


























-- Post From My iPhone

An Exciting Week of Firsts

We have had quite the exciting week here! It started off with Connor losing his first tooth, then Maggie getting her first pair of doggie booties, and ending with Spencer participating in his first Spelling Bee. (If you want to see pics of Maggie and Connor, scroll down to posts from earlier this week.)

Last week I went back to the Apple store and took another class on making movies. I still have to practice and learn some more, but this time it only took me about an hour to make the movie. And I added some bells and whistles to it. So I'm making progress!

So for your viewing pleasure, I present you

SPELLING BEE 2010

starring Spencer.

Thanks for visiting me!