Tickled Pink

Valentine's Day

2012-02-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been a few days since I posted last, I have been busy. I have lots to share with you in the next few days though. But since yesterday was Valentine's day I am going to talk about that. First of all of those of you that don't know, or know and like the story, I am going to share the story of St. Valentine. ...

In 270 A.D., marriage had been outlawed by the emperor of Rome, Claudius II. Claudius issued this decree because he thought that married men made bad soldiers since they were reluctant to be torn away from their families in the case of war. Claudius had also outlawed Christianity in this time period because he wished to be praised as the one supreme god, the Emperor of Rome. Valentine was the bishop of Interamna during this period of oppression. Valentine thought that the decrees of Rome were wrong. He believed that people should be free to love God and to marry. Valentine invited the young couples of the area to come to him. When they came, Valentine secretly performed services of matrimony and united the couples.

Valentine was eventually caught and was brought before the emperor. The emperor saw that Valentine had conviction and drive that was unsurpassed among his men. Claudius tried and tried to persuade Valentine to leave Christianity, serve the Roman empire and the Roman gods. In exchange, Claudius would pardon him and make him one of his allies. St. Valentine held to his faith and did not renounce Christ. Because of this, the emperor sentenced him to a three-part execution. First, Valentine would be beaten, then stoned, and then finally, decapitated. Valentine died on February 14th, 270 A.D.

While in prison, waiting for his sentence to be carried out, Valentine fell in love with the jailer's daughter, the blind Asterius. During the course of Valentine's prison stay, a miracle occurred and Asterius regained her sight. Valentine sent her a final farewell note. He signed his last note, "From Your Valentine." Even today, this message remains as the motto for our Valentine's Day celebrations.

I love that story!!

I couldn't decide between two cards to make for my husband so he got both, one cute one and one funny one. I will share them both with you here today. Please note that the funny one is slightly naughty.

Since he got more than one card I decided that he needed a little Valentine mail box.

I used Valentines 3D Boxes, it is a Cricut Craft Room (which I discovered recently and will be discussing soon) exclusive. I used no name cheap paper from walmart. He loved it. I thought it was quite clever. While I admit that it might have been cuter had I used all one color of paper I am still happy with the way it turned out.

This is his cute card. I actually took the time to glue each leaf down individually, there are about 100 of them. I really wanted it to have texture and dimension. The only cartridge I used was Planton Schoolbook. The little owl and pink tree are stickers from walmart. I used a variety of paper and if you would like to know a specific one (or all of them) please ask and I would be happy to let you know.

This is the funny card, I saw one on pinterest and I about died laughing so I had to make him one. He thought it was hilarious. It isn't as nicely made as it could have been but since it was a joke I didn't want to spend much time on it. I used the Wild Card cartridge.

Every year I get him the same thing, a "puppy in a cup". I get a small stuffed animal and shove it into a coffee cup, I have done this for 4 years now. This year I decided not to go with the pink and red cup with hearts that he got for the past 3 years (different cups all with similar patterns) and got him an Air Force mug, he was so excited I practically had to wrestle it away from him so I could wash it before he used it. I didn't take a picture of it and I don't want to stick the puppy back into it and get him all dirty. Now what he got me is pretty spectacular. I have been wanting diamond earrings for years now. I have tons of sparkly earrings but none of the real thing. So he got me my first pair of real diamond earrings and I am in love with them.

Aren't they gorgeous! We don't usually do much for Valentine's day, we make a nice dinner at home and exchange small gifts. Thats what made this even more of a surprise. Speaking of nice dinner at home. Oh my was it good. We had steaks, cheesy potatoes, garlic cheddar biscuits, and for dessert chocolate covered strawberries.

I thought they turned out quite cute this year, I make them every year. I was going to get white chocolate and swirl them but I forgot to buy the white chocolate chips so I used some sprinkles I had in the cupboard. Plus I love any occasion I get to bust out my fine china, it's so beautiful.

I had an amazing day with the man of my dreams, but that is usually true of every day. I am thinking that this post is plenty long enough now so I will say good bye for today. But I will be back with more soon.

Sizzix Texture Boutique

2012-02-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

I FINALLY got the rest of my embossing folders that I ordered. I am am thrilled with them. Now that I got to play with my embossing machine a little more I am ready to talk about it. I got the Texture Botique machine by Sizzix. I already have a cricut so I wanted something small that would just emboss, I didn't care if it could die-cut.

Aint it cute? I love that it looks like a little purse. The only thing that could make it better would be if it were pink! Everything is better when it's pink!

It came with quite a bit of stuff, sorry about the crappy picture, I was so excited when it came I just ripped open the box in the living room. It came with 1 large, 1 medium and 1 small folder, white and ivory cards/envelops, some sandable cardstock (I haven't decided what I think of this yet), rub on sentiments (that I will be trying shortly) and an "idea booklet". I use quotes because it shows a card and a candy label, not much of an idea booklet if you ask me.

These are all of the embossing folders so far. I am obsessed with the stars and swirls (teal card on top left). I am going to have a lot of fun creating with these. I couldn't get the textures to show up better in pictures but I am thinking when they are on a project they will pop a lot more. I have some cool ideas in my head and I will be posting more as I finish them.

I am currently still working on the blanket for my cat AKA knitting basics practice. I ended up making my own pattern and I will share the pattern with you when I finish the "blanket" and make sure that the pattern works out. Thanks for reading!

Happy Birthday Hubby!!

2012-02-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

Today is my amazing husbands 29th birthday. I had a few surprises for him, I am in love with the card I made him. But first I will tell you about my epic accident prone moment. When I asked my husband what he wanted for his birthday he made a list of foods that he wanted to eat. He loves my cooking. One of the things he wanted was a roast. No problem, roast is easy, brown it in the pan, put in some soup and forget about it for a few hours (or try to forget about it, they smell so good). Anyway, I was heating a little olive oil in my slow cooker pan on the stove to brown the outside of the roast to give it a nice color. I went to flip the roast off of the little butcher tray (like I always do) but this time the roast slipped off the tray and the little plastic sheet that sits under the roast landed in the oil and made it pop all over my arm. Then melted to my pan (thankfully it came off easy).

I took this picture about 5 hours after it happened. All the little red dots are raised welts. It hurts like crazy. I am hoping that it feels better tomorrow. Not long after this happened I also ran into a counter, hit my head and stabbed my hand on a fork in the dishwasher. I am now seated on my couch snuggled in a soft blanked and trying to avoid anything hot or sharp.

Once all of that was over I actually got to celebrate his birthday. Adding to his list of wanted foods was home made salsa, after I made that I moved on to his "cake". I use quotes because he doesn't like cake, I make him apple crisp instead. Not my first choice but he loves it. To make it more birthday-ish I put candles in it.

I guess it kind of looks like a cake in a weird way. I did a little something different this time and added some brown sugar to the crust. That was a hit, he loved it. I think I cooked it a tad to long but he loved the crunchy edge crust so I guess thats ok (he ate some off my plate too). I didn't sing but the candles sure are cute.

Now on to the good stuff... Presents and the card.

Every year I put his gifts in some kind of "super hero" wrapping or something else that he would find humorous, this year it was Transformers. He loved it.

He has a MacBook Pro that he absolutely loves. So I decided to model his card after it.

Sorry if the screen looks a little funky, I took the picture after I wrote my message on it and I didn't really want the world to see my birthday message, so I photoshoped it out. It is the same color as the keys.

I think it turned out quite cute. I am proud of it. It is a little wobbly because I have been experimenting with different glues. This project would have been better with a tape type glue for the card portion so that it didn't get all warped, but its cute anyway. The paper is ColorBok Midnight Garden and the card stock is ColorBok Neutrals. I used my rotary cutter for a lot of it and Plantin SchoolBook for some. I now know that I need a punch that will round corners because cutting all of the round edges by hand is not something I would choose to do again.

I know that I keep saying that I will be talking about my new embossing machine soon, but when I checked my tracking number it got pushed back another day, so maybe Monday? It usually takes a day longer to get here than what tracking says because we live in the middle of nowhere and now it is saying Saturday. I thought FedEx was supposed to be fast. It is so much slower than regular mail and I am really frustrated. I don't know that I will be ordering much from Joann.com anymore because this happened last time too, it took almost 3 weeks to get some embroidery floss (they had the color I wanted). At this rate it is much more beneficial to drive the hour + to civilization and shop in person. For many things it makes sense to order online because I am going to have to pay for gas anyway and shipping is usually cheaper. Hobby Lobby might be getting all of my business from now on. I wish Michael's did online ordering, I miss Michael's.

I will be back in a few days, maybe with an older project since I didn't make anything while I had the death cold, which I am thankfully over. I am also working on a little blanket for my cat, or as I like to call it, practice knitting. But he will love it, he loves afghans and if I make a little one it can be left out for him all the time. It's a win win. Thanks for reading :)

More cupcakes?

2012-02-07T12:44:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday my husband reminded me that we had a birthday for his coworkers husband the next day. He had told me way in advance but I forgot, my bad. But I was thinking to myself, I have all of this card making stuff and what better occasion than a birthday to make a card. Now the problem I was facing was making a custom card for someone that I have met once and don't really know much about. Then it hit me, everyone loves cupcakes, and I just so happen to have a cartridge with a cupcake card on it. Perfect!

You unfortunately can't really see it but in the picture above the envelope has candles cut out on it. Next time I make this envelope I will cut something to put behind it so the candles show up more.

I think it turned out it, a little generic but thats what I was going for. The orange and blue paper are from cheap no name paper packs from Walmart. The brown swirly paper is from Classic Prints by K I Memories. The brown card stock is ColorBok Neutrals.

My next project is going to be a knitted case for my Kindle, I have to get new needles, I don't have any circular ones. I have a few more cards that will be delivered soon (one for hubby's birthday tomorrow) that I will be sharing with you. As well as talking about my new embossing machine on Saturday when I get the rest of the embossing folders. Much more crafty fun to come! Thanks for reading!

Cupcakes

2012-02-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

I am so sorry that I have been MIA lately. I have a terrible cold and I haven't been up to doing much other than laying around and blowing my nose.

Since I have been sick I haven't created anything new for a bit. I started on a birthday card for my step father in law (I guess thats what I could call him, I usually just call him by his name). If it turns out like the picture in my head it is going to be pretty awesome. A friend of mine received her package yesterday so I am going to share what I made for her. First of I have a little rant though....

I ordered two things online about an hour apart from each other on Monday. One from eBay and one from Joann. Now one would think when ordering from a big company that things would get out of the warehouse quickly since they have many people working for them and something coming from a single person on eBay may (understandably) take a while. I ordered an embossing machine from ebay, which I received on Thursday. It's awesome. It came with a few embossing folders but not much, so I ordered a few more from Joann since they were having a kick ass sale on them. So after I receive the machine I get an email from Joann saying that my folders shipped and I should have them next Saturday (a week and a half). I am a little peeved at how long it's taking to get them. After I get the folders I will show you my new embossing machine. <end rant>

Ok, now that I got that off my chest let me show you some really cool pot holders with a matching card that I made. I have friend who is going through kind of a rough spot and I thought she might like a little cheering up and when I saw this pattern I had to make it for her. She bakes the worlds most amazing cupcakes so it was fitting. I call her my wifey because after I took one bite of her cupcakes I asked her to marry me.

Isn't it just the cutest! I love it so much. The original pattern was really cute but I wanted to embellish it a little bit more so I added the sprinkles and the scallops to look like the frosting was coming over the edge a little. The original pattern can be found Here. I originally found it on pinterest. I used This pattern for the scallops. I used glass beads in sets of three for the sprinkles and sewed them on before sewing the back and front pieces together so that the threads were hidden on the inside.

Since my new obsession is card making I couldn't send these adorable pot holders without a super cute coordinating card. I used the Love You A Latte cartridge for the cupcake and all of the background shapes including the frame on the envelope. I used Plantin Schoolbook for the envelope and her name and I cut the card with my rotary cutter. It is the same size that Plantin Schoolbook would have cut it but I don't like the notches it puts in to show you were to fold and it wastes a lot of paper. The lime green is ColorBok textured cardstock from the Summer Pastel pack, the black is ColorBok cardstock from the neutral pack, the light gray is ColorBok paper from the Midnight Garden pack, and the dark grey is from a random wedding paper pack that I have had forever, it came from walmart.

I am so excited about how well they match. I loved working on this project. It was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun at the same time. I have a few more projects that I am working on, I will be sharing them with you as soon as they are finished and/or delivered. It might be a few more days before I post again, I need to kick this cold!

Getting rid of weight

2012-02-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

I havent shared on here that I am currently trying to be a healthier me. I saw a thing on pinterest that said "I am not losing weight, I am getting rid of it. I have no intention of finding it again". I love this! I hope that I don't ever find the weight that I have lost. So far I have lost 12 pounds out of a goal of 33. I am trying to lose the weight slowly and in a healthy way by making new habits for myself. I have done weird starvation diets and the weight always comes back plus some. I only shoot for one pound a week and so far thats pretty much what I have done, I started on November 7th (12 weeks, 12 pounds). Some weeks I lost more, some less, and I gained a little at Christmas but I am right on track to be at my goal by my birthday (June 18).

Anyway, so in my many wasted hours on pinterest I found a really cool visual aid for weight loss and I made my own version. I don't think I am wild about the jars I picked out, they are cute but the jewels sit in the little dip in the bottom and are hard to see.

I highly recommend buying stickers. I bought ribbon that matched some paper I had (then I didn't even use that paper). What I did was cut the letters on my cricut (I used the font on the Wild Card cartridge) put a dab of Elmer's glue on a piece of scrap paper and dipped the letters in using tweezers then placed them on the jar. As I am sure you can imagine the glue went everywhere, so I let it dry and then used the scoop hook took out of my cricut kit and scratched off all of the excess glue. It turned out just fine, but stickers would have been a lot easier. If I get new jars I will be getting stickers.

I looked at the jewels/rocks in the craft department and they were way to expensive, so these are actually meant for a fish tank. Just as cute and half the price. I will be putting the extras in my fish tank actually, his tank is super colorful and they will look great. He is probably the most spoiled beta ever, but he is very special to me, I will tell you more about him later. The website that inspired this little project can be found Here. I actually never looked at the page until now, I only saw the picture on pinterest. I love her idea of the big pink stone for her goal weight and I think I might be doing the same thing. I have them set up in my bathroom (which is pink of corse) and they fit right in. Hope you enjoyed this and I all keep you up to date on the weight loss goals and how they are going.

I mailed out a surprise to a friend yesterday and ordered some embossing stuff, I will be posting about both as soon as they are delivered.

Knit

2012-01-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

More than a few months ago I decided that I wanted to learn to knit. I have known how to crochet for as long as I can remember but there are so many cute knit patterns that I felt that I was missing out on. Today I FINALLY finished a knit project. It is nowhere near perfect, but I am extremely proud of it. I made a coffee cup cozy. I think I might need to make hot cocoa tonight so I can take it for a test run.

I will have to make a pink one. I didn't have any pink yarn and since I wasn't sure if I would finish it I just used some spare green yarn I had. The pattern I used can be found Here, the book I used to learn can be purchased Here as well as random youtube videos. I used Caron Simply Soft in Limelight.

I hope you enjoyed it like I did. I am super excited that I actually knit something. I am going to start looking for patterns for my next knit project soon.

Apples

2012-01-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

After I made the Coffee themed card to go with the Scentsy for my mom I decided to do the same thing for my mother-in-law. They have a really yummy apple smell (Toasted Apple Butter) that they brought back just for January with the bring back my bar so I decided to get it for her. I think that this may be my favorite card that I have made so far. The picture doesn't show it very well but the way the pattern on the green and red paper went together on her name was almost perfect.

I used Plantin Schoolbook for the apples, letters and envelope and Love You A Latte for the wavy squares. All of it is paper from Walmart. That will soon though, we took a trip out of town today and I got some paper at Hobby Lobby. I can't wait to start creating with it.

A while ago I taught myself to knit. I haven't successfully made anything other than rectangles. So that is my next mission. I am going to attempt a coffee mug cozy, wish me luck, I may need it. Coming up soon I will show you the cutest thing I have made in a while with a card that matches perfectly. It's a gift though, so I will show it to you after they receive it.

Coffee

2012-01-26T19:37:00.000-07:00

My grandparents always had coffee brewing. Always. So the smell of coffee smells like home to me. I drink coffee but not all day long and my single serve coffee maker doesn't leave a smell that lingers for hours like I wish it would. So I was super excited when Scentsy brought back a coffee smell that actually smells like coffee.

I bought two of them for myself and one for my mom. I made her a coffee card to go along with it. She received it today so I thought I would share it with you. As a side note this is the first card that I made with my Cricut (I made one with a friend for my brothers wedding in September). I am pretty proud of it, my cards have gotten better but I wanted my mom to have the first one.

I used the "Love You A Latte" mini cartridge and Colorbok paper and cardstock from Walmart.

Watermelon

2012-01-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

I have been working on a really cute surprise for someone today. I mailed out two other surprises yesterday so I will have more posts of awesome stuff coming soon. I am really excited about the one that I am working on right now and the card I made my hubby for his birthday. After they are delivered I will post them.

I made this cute watermelon card a few days ago. It has no recipient or reason for existing but it sure is cute.

I used the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.
Pink and blue paper are no name cheap paper from walmart
Cream and black are Colorbok neutral card stock

Wild Card

2012-01-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

Today I got a new cartridge, "Wild Card". It's amazing so far. If you like making greeting cards I suggest getting it. The first card I made with it is the argyle card. It's amazing. I also made this nifty box for a background when I photograph my cards.

It says memo, it's kind of hard to read.

I used Colorbok brand for all of the card stock and the Wild Card Cricut cartridge. The black and white are from the neutral pack and the pink is summer pastel textured. The white liner in the envelope is computer paper, the card stock is so thick, I wanted something thin that wouldn't take up to much room.

The posts might be a little light over the next few days, I am working on a few (ok, a few more than and few) gifts and I won't want to post pictures until they have been delivered just in case they check the blog. But I promise I won't forget about you :) I have a few other cards that I have made and I will share them with you as I work on the gifts. I have some cool stuff up my sleeve that I will be showing you soon! Thanks for reading!

BOY

2012-01-20T22:20:00.001-07:00

I have made a few cards, some I love, some not so much. This is not the first card that I made (I might share that with you later). I had an idea to do a baby card. I don't have anyone to give it to at the moment, but I am in love with it anyway.

It would have been better if I would have had fabric ribbon but I am still building my supplies.

It was really easy, the only cartridge I used was Plantin Schoolbook. I used all paper from Walmart (I live in a little town and it's all I have).

This is Max, he decided that he wanted to help me make a card, his way of helping was to jump in my paper bin to make sure that I couldn't get more paper out. He is a good little helper! Isn't he cute. I love this little guy, he follows me like a lost puppy, he is curled up next to me as I type. I have many more cards to share with you, but I will save that for another day.

Favorite Utah Treat

2012-01-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

When I was a freshman in high school my parents moved me to tiny but beautiful place called Cache Vally Utah. I hated it at first but I grew to love it. Logan (the main city there) has some really cool local stuff that I miss. I haven't lived there in almost 6 years, although it feel like longer. Anyway. My mom went up for a visit not to long ago and she got me one of my favorite local items and mailed it to me. Root beer milk, now I know the two things that probably instantly come to your mind, who would mail milk? Gossner milk is shelf stable, until it is opened it doesn't need to be refrigerated until it has been opened. Now the other thing you are probably thinking, my husbands exact word when I told him what I was drinking was "nasty"! But if you think about it, it isn't that different from a root beer float. So if you are ever in Cache Vally Utah, pop into either Gossner foods (get some cheese too, yumm) or a Macey's and get some root beer milk, you won't be disappointed!

Cricut Mats

2012-01-18T19:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I promised you a good Cricut mat tip, so here it is. If you own a Cricut then you know that one of the most frustrating things is the need to buy new mats all the time because the buggers just don't stay sticky. I see people messing around with spray adhesives and other sticky substances and I am not about to do that, I fear what it may do to my machine. I like to think that the Cricut makers know what kind of sticky gunk is best for the mat. Now that being said I still don't want to spend money buying new mats all the time, so I found a good solution to the problem, what to know what this magic trick is?? .............. Dish soap, yup regular old dish soap. If you rinse your mat then give it a good rub down with some dish soap and rinse again then BAM your mat is sticky again. I did this yesterday evening, then I hung it on the fridge with magnets to dry, I am sure that there are better places to dry it, but thats what worked for me at the time. I gave the washed mat a try today and it worked out just fine. I am not sure how much longer it's going to last but I am happy that I got at least one more card out of it. Now go get to washing your mats :)

Picture Clock

2012-01-17T18:25:00.000-07:00

A while back I saw a picture online of a clock with picture frames, the website to buy the original can be found here. They were all different sizes and had colored paper in them rather than pictures. Well, my "symmetrical brain" would not allow me to have frames of different sizes. It would drive me crazy. So I have spent the last couple of months trying to recreate this clock in a way that I would like. My amazing mom got me the clock on clearance at Bed Bath and Beyond. I got the frames at Walmart for super cheap, but they never had enough so I bought some and waited for them to get more in. Then the frames sat on my entertainment center for a while taunting me. I knew it was going to be a lot of measuring and pounding on the wall. I really should have waited for a day when my neighbors bass was really loud, oh wait, thats every day, including right now as I write this :/ (we live in a duplex on an Air Force base and our neighbors love their subwoofer). But thats a story for another day, back to the clock. I had the pictures stuck to the wall with fun tak for a long time while I picked out frames. Today I decided that I walked past it enough and it was time to finish it. And it turned out amazing, or at least I think it did, what do you think?

The pictures are of all of our favorite places that we have been (or the ways we have "spent our time"). I think it turned out really good. I love how thin the frames are because it makes it look more finished without taking away from the over all look. I hope you enjoy it. I have a really good tip for Cricut mats that I will be sharing tomorrow. If you use a Cricut you will like this tip. See you then :)

Given Enough Coffee

2012-01-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't make anything today... boo. But I still wanted to share something this evening. I did make a super cute card yesterday, but I decided to wait until I give it to the person I made it for before I share. I have another on that I am working on but that will be the same thing.

I am going to share an older cross stitch I did. I have been looking for new art to put in my kitchen to put on a big blank wall I have. My kitchen is all coffee themed stuff. Since I am on coffee decor overload from trying to be inspired with something amazing for said wall it makes sense to share my coffee themed cross stitch. It is the first one that I finished as an adult and made me want to get into it more. I did a few little ones in high school but I didn't really have a passion for it until recently. This one is printed, not counted. So it didn't take much time or brain power to finish, but it matched my kitchen. I love the way it looks.

After I got done outlining all of the cups I was a little upset that I didn't have enough black floss to do the words. I couldn't understand why they didn't give me enough floss to finish the project. I usually have a ton left over when I get the kits. After actually reading the instructions (oops) I wasn't supposed to outline the cups (double oops). Oh well, I think it looks much better with them outlined and I had enough red to do the words. So in the end I actually think it looks better. I got the kit from Joann and I think the frame came from Michael's but it could have come from Joann as well.

I hope you enjoyed this one. I love it! Talk to you later.

Cricut Tool Kit

2012-01-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

I got my nifty new Cricut tool kit in the mail today. I am super excited about it. I am going to use it as soon as I am done with this blog but I was so excited about it I had to share. It has all of these cool tools... Bone Folder Tool, Small Scraper Tool, Large Scraper Tool, Exacto Knife, 2 Extra Exacto Blades, Small Scissors, Stainless Steel Tweezers, Hook Tool, Scoop Hook Tool, Narrow Blade Spatula Tool with Rounded Tip , and a Wide Blade Spatula Tool and it's all in a nice case. Plus, IT'S PINK, which makes it even more awesome!

I am betting you can guess where I got it... did you guess eBay? Then you would be correct. Well, I am off to make some card ideas I have in my head and use my new tools and the paper I bought today. If they turn out as cute as I think they will I will share them with you later.

Magnetic Window Markers

2012-01-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

So I know that I already posted once today but I had to write about these awesome little things I got in the mail yesterday. I don't know if I am more excited about the fact that I finally got them or how awesome they are. I ordered them on November 5th, so it's been a long wait. The first package got lost in the mail. I ordered them on eBay from a girl in England, she was really cool about getting me another one though. That aside they are amazing and in my opinion well worth the wait. I do a lot of counted cross stitch, not an easy thing for someone with ADD. So I was excited when I found these window markers, they are magnetic and come with a magnetic board to put behind your pattern to keep your place. I am doing a complicated cross stitch for the first time. I always picked really simple patterns until this one. I am sure I will post pictures of some of the past ones I have done.

This is one of the markers that came with it on the pattern I am currently working on.

It came with many different sizes of windows and a white magnet board.

Now if I stop to (pretend) listen to my husband tell me about his video game, watch my cat run into something or get distracted by "oh look, something shiny" sorry, see how easy it is. As I was saying, now if I get distracted my place is held and easy to find again. Such an amazing helper!

I looked at the tracking information for something I ordered a few days ago to go with my Cricut and I should have it tomorrow. So I am sure I will be back to tell you all about it.

Cricut

2012-01-13T15:24:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I got my newest craft addiction, a Cricut Expression. I have wanted one for a long time and I finally got it. I debated for a long time which die-cut machine I wanted and ultimately decided this was the best one for me. I love it so much. The only thing that could have made it better is if it were pink. They make a pink one, but it was MUCH more expensive and limited edition so I couldn't find one on ebay or amazon.

So now that I have my new Cricut the debate was project was I going to do first. I have so many ideas. I decided on something for my laundry room wall, it's out of the way and if I screwed it up no one would have to know. I knew my first project would have a lot of mistakes (and it did, I had to do it over 3 times) since I was figuring out the machine. I think it turned out quite cute.

After I took the picture I realized how off the "g" and one of the starts were. They have since been fixed. I used a pack a paper that I got at Walmart for 97 cents, it doesn't have a name but its browns, pinks, and oranges. I used the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and hung the letters up with poster putty that I cut into little chunks with scissors. I got the idea from Pinterest, here is the original blog that it was on http://ramblingasusual.blogspot.com/2011/01/prodigal-socks.html. I hope that you enjoyed my first project. I hope to post much more later as I figure out my Cricut.

Hello World

2012-01-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

So, I will admit that I have tried the blog thing before and failed miserably. I am hoping to keep this one up. I will be posting lots about my craft projects (past, present and future) with a few life and beauty posts thrown in there (I am a cosmetologist after all). As it is starting to get late tonight so I think I will just tell you a little bit about me and then I will call it a night and post more tomorrow.

I am a proud Air Force wife to an amazing man, we have been together for 5 years and married for closing in on 3. We recently had our first PCS (military move) together and I am trying to get used to living in a small town again (I lived in Las Vegas for 6 years) and adjusting to being away from my parents. I am a licensed cosmetologist although I am not currently in a salon, we moved right before the holidays and it wasn't practical to get a job. I plan to begin looking very soon though. We have no kids with no immediate plans to have any. We have two cats Max (my cat) and Jake (hubby's cat), both of them are male, black and very loving. I am sure they will pop up in blogs from time to time.

The color pink is not just my favorite color, it is an obsession of mine. I am guilty of buying things I don't need simply because they come in the color pink. If you continue to read my blog you will notice this trend.

I spend the majority of my time doing craft projects of all types, I won't even try to name them all. As I mentioned before this blog will be mostly about my craft projects. Since I have done so many amazing (well, I think they are amazing) projects in the past I will post some of those on here too, with links to tutorials and sites I got inspiration when possible. I may even try and to a few of my own tutorials if I come up with something cool.

I hope that you enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy writing it. Please feel free to comment and ask questions. Now I think it is time to head off to bed and read.