Odd Inspiration

Okay, so I was looking through my pantry the other day and saw a couple things that caught my eye.  I'm always on the lookout for cool design ideas, but I never thought to open my pantry doors for inspiration!  I first saw a cake mix and thought that it would make a cute card.  Here's the cake mix box:

Notice the red spoon on the top of the box....I thought that would be a great place for a ribbon.  Also notice the "White" word on a small strip of blue....I thought that would be a good place for a small sentiment.  Now, here is the card I made.  I replaced the yummy cake for a pretty flower cut from my Cricut.  I know it's not an exact match, but can you see the similarities?  I hope so!

Next up, I saw the label on my bread flour bag.  Here's a snapshot of it:

I liked the big medallion-looking part at the top of the bag and decided to transfer the idea to a card.  In the following card, I used embossed paper, aqua ribbon and another flower style cut from my Cricut for the centerpiece.

Be sure to always keep your eyes open for ideas - you never know where your next inspiration may come from.  :0)  I hope you enjoyed this post!  Please leave a comment if you'd like - I love to read them!  :0)

Sweet Treats

Yesterday I bought my very first Cricut cartridge.  It was so hard to decide which one to get!  I had shopped on Cricut.com before I went to the store so I had a good idea of what I wanted to get.  (Did you know that you can view the whole handbook of each cartridge so you can see exactly what it will cut?  You can view them if you click here!  It's awesome!) 

Anyway, they only had two of the ones on my list:  Sweet Treats and From My Kitchen.  The cartridges were advertised in JoAnn's flyer for $34.99 but our local Michael's store will honor competetor's ads and take 10% off, so I bought mine from Michaels.  I want to go back this week and get the "From My Kitchen" cartridge, but I don't know if I have the extra cash.  :0)

Here are the first few cards I made with the Sweet Treats cartridge.  I hope you enjoy them!  If so, please leave me a comment!  I love to get them!  :0)

Baby Bug

I have been bitten by a bug!  A baby bug, that is!  This is my new friend, the Cricut Create.

I bought it yesterday at Wal-Mart for $99.  (They matched an ad from Big Lots....thank you Wal-Mart!)  I have been playing with it today and wanted to post my first Cricut creations.  I hope you like them!  If so, please leave me a comment!  I'd really appreciate it!

Down FIFTEEN Pounds!!

Hi friends!  Okay, so I am soooo excited!  I weighed in this morning and I am officially down 15 pounds!  I don't want to say that I've "lost" it, because that kinda sounds like I might want to "find" it again.  :0)  And I definitely don't want this weight to ever creep back onto my body!  I feel so much better, healthier and lighter and I don't ever want to give up this way of living!

Okay, I'll back up a bit....a couple of weeks ago, I posted about my "Dollar Diet".  A lot of Facebook friends and some local friends have asked me to show how I am playing the Dollar Diet game.  (By the way, that is a term we gave it....it's not really a diet because no foods are off limits, but we didn't know what to call it.  I'm open for changing the name if any of you can think of something better.)  :0) 

How we play is that every dollar represents one calorie.  (I play with $1,200 each day, or 1200 calories.)  Everytime you eat, you move the amount of calories that you "spend" from the 'available' section to the 'spent' section.  When you've spent all your money, you brush your teeth and stop eating for the night.  (That's a tip from Dr. Phil's book.  I like it because it's a good signal that says "I'm done" for the day.)

Here are a couple of pictures of my food "wallet" that I made last month.  My daughter is playing with me and she has a tri-fold wallet with a spot called 'reserved'.  If she knows she's going out to eat with friends, or has plans for later, she will look up her calorie count of the food she wants to eat later and then put that amount in her 'reserved' spot.  She is doing great too!  I'm so proud of her!

New Card Designs

Okay, so I love Saturdays....have I mentioned that yet?  I love them.  No school, no work, no cooking (well, most of the time).  Just a day where we can all hang out as a family and get to those extra fun projects that we can't seem to get done during the week.  Okay....blah, blah, blah, right?

I worked a bit in my craft room today.  I made the organza bracelet (see below) and then made a couple of cards.  I made the Mickey Mouse card for my mom to give to my dad.  (She surprised him with a Disney trip for their anniversary!)  The glittery flower "joy" card is for my beautiful niece who just delivered her first baby the other day.  I am going to send this to her with, of course, an assortment of hair flowers for her and her new baby.  :0)

Organza Flower Bracelet

Okay, new craft idea!  I found these adorable organza flowers on Mrs. Priss' blog and I just had to try to make one.  It was so easy and so cute!  Here's the link case you want to try to make one too. She has a great step-by-step tutorial on them! Have fun! :0)  Please leave a comment if you'd like!

My First Cricut Experience!

Okay, so I am driving my family absolutely crazy over my desire to own a Cricut Expression.  In December I entered a prize giveaway by CustomCrops.com for a grand prize Cricut bundle package.  They emailed me and said I was one of the 10 finalists, but here we are in February and I have received nothing from them.  (They had said that I would receive either the grand prize or another smaller prize.  I'm not sure if it was a joke or a scam or just what.)  Anyway, after I found out I was a finalist, I started researching the Cricut and found so many cool projects!  Of course, now the Cricut is number 1 on my wish list.  :0)

A met a sweet lady in our homeschool group that invited me over today to play with her Cricut.  She was so sweet to have me over!  She showed me the basics and we made the following projects together.  I had a blast!!  We are going to get together again in a couple of weeks for round two.  :0)  I can't wait!