Reusing Your Cricut Mat

Hi Everyone! I am so excited that I am finally writing a post!

I have been using my cricut a lot lately and have been contemplating about buying more cutting mats. I have both sizes the 12X12 and the 12X24. I really like using my 12X12 as it is more convenient when I am only cutting on 81/2 X 11 paper, and because of that it is very well used. I find that you need more room for the bigger mats and that I also need to hang on to the mat. As I was saying that my one and only 12X12 mat is very well used and the mat is covered in paper bits. I do have a spray glue that I use on my mats when they become less tacky and it works great, but it isn't working that well on my 12X12 because of all of the paper. So I went searching for some 12X12 mats but have not found any in the stores. So today I had an epiphany and washed my mat in some soapy water. I scrubbed it with a non scratch sponge and all of the paper came off, then mat was actually tacky again. I let it dry and then I went over it with the spray glue (I better mention that the spray glue is for repositioning) and I am just letting the glue dry now.

I have a bunch of things to cut out today, so I will let you know how it worked. Look at the money we can save by washing our mats and spraying them ourselves! Anyways that is my big news for you, I am sure that some of you have figured this out for yourselves already. I just hope that my epiphany helps someone else out too. I am off to check my mats and start cutting. Happy cutting! Until next time :)

Yeah for a New Printer!

Hi Everyone! I haven't been blogging lately because I was down a printer and couldn't upload any of my pics. Well if I could have found my cord for my camera I could have but trying to find something that is hidden here somewhere in my craft room is near to impossible right now. I have lots of pics to upload and cards to share, today I am making a ton of space theme things using digi stamps (now that I can print them "can you tell how excited I am about my new printer!") and using my cricut. This is for the library in the kids school, space is the theme for the book fair this year. I'll make sure to take some pics of what I make so that I can share that with you too. I gotta go because I just finished installing my printer and now I need to get creating.......until next time :)

School Starts Tomorrow :(

Hi Everyone! Wow August has been a whirl wind for us, we came back from holidays only to be home for a few days then we took the kids to my mom's and hubby and I flew (by car) to Kelowna for the weekend to attend a wedding. We left here Friday morning, the wedding was on Saturday and then left there Sunday morning to come home. We are still a little tired from it all, and I have been busy going through all of the kids clothes getting rid of what is too small, and did all of the laundry yesterday (all the new clothes) and everything is ready for them to go to school. I am not ready for them to go back, I really enjoy them being home. Today is a special day just for my kids, there last day of summer break and it's raining outside. So they have had french toast for breakfast (one of their faves, cause I put a bit of cinnamon and icing sugar on it then cut it into strips for them) they are now playing together and no arguing *so far* so now I am going to find out what they would like to do next. I think maybe a movie will be in order today too :)

I have a ton of pictures in my camera from the weekend and some cards pictures too, but now I need to find my cord to plug my camera into my computer as my printer has gone on the fritz (I have no idea why it's still fairly new) so I am really upset about that, it happened last night. It just came up with some support number on it this morning so I am hoping that I can call HP and get this all fixed.

Off to enjoy the rest of the day with the kids. Until next time :)

A Card for Ryan

Hi Everyone! I am doing a really quick post because we are actually just heading on our summer vacation and I wanted to make sure to mail this card before we left the city.

This card is for Ryan, you can see the blinkie on the top right sight of the blog ========= >
please go and visit and listen to Ryan's story. I will just say that Ryan is a very kind person, an angel from God that was only trying to help others then unfortunately was hurt himself. Please go and read the full story and make sure to send Ryan a card.

Here is the card that I made for him...

I hope this raises his spirits and my family and I will be praying for his recovery.

The image used is Deacon with wings and you can find him here over at Bugaboo Stamps. I think that Ava and Deacon are my absolute most faves!! 

That's it for me, and please make sure to go and read Ryan's story and please, please, please send him a card. I know that all of us crafters can really bring it when we want to so let's shower him with love.

See you in a week :)

Star Light Star Bright

Hi Everyone! Today I am sharing with you what I made for my daughter's room. Her favorite color is pink (just like mine....tehehe) so I just had to go with it.

This is one of the images from the July club kit over at A Day for Daisies (aka  ADFD) you can have a good look at the all of the images here and you can find it here at the shop. I just love all of the images over at ADFD and that is why I became a club member. Anyways enough about me and here is what I made...

I am going to hang this up on her bedroom wall. I colored the image in photoshop and added a light pink grunge frame around it using a brush in photoshop. I printed the image out twice so that I could add some dimension to the picture. You can see a little better in this next picture all of the added touches.

I just had to take a close up so I could show you this. The girl on the hammock was a piece that I cut out of the second print and adhered it with dimensional tape. Also the flowers and before adhering them I used my dry embossing tool to round them out a bit for some more shape. After I added the flowers with dimensional tape I then added some glossy accents to them and a mini pearl to the centres. I added some glitter glue to the stars and a bit of it for highlights on the girl. I had so much fun making this!

I am going to enter this over at ADFD blog as they are now looking for 3 new design team members for the club kit members! I am super excited about this and have all my fingers crossed :)

We are also going on vacation tomorrow for a week, so here's hoping the weather is nice and warm and I can get rid of the farmer tan lines. Until next time :)

Anniversaries

Hi Everyone! The kids and I spent the day at the zoo yesterday with my mom. The weather was perfect for it and we had some amazing new experiences with some of the animals. The zoo is definitely one of our favourite places to go!

Today I am sharing a card with you that I made for my brother and sister in laws wedding anniversary.
I found the couple image for this card over at Graphics Fairy and the link to where you can find this particular image is here.

I'll show you the card and then tell you what I did with it in photoshop.

I've just been searching everywhere on my computer to find out where I found the swirl with butterflies corner but I can't find it anywhere. So first I went over the image with a grunge brush and then the swirl and butterfly corner and added the wording happy anniversary. 

I am really enjoying learning more about photoshop each time I use it and am seriously loving it more all the time. I am working on a project for my living room right now and I literally sat here at my computer all day just my new project together, I still have a bit to do to it. I am actually trying to come up with the saying that I want in the background on it. Super excited to get this one done :)

The weekend is here and the kids and I are so happy that my dh is finally coming home today. He has been gone all week to Chicago and we have missed him so! Hope that you all are enjoying your weekend, the weather here is beautiful so far. Until next time :)

Fun in Photoshop

Hi Everyone! My daughter also had a change of heart last night and does not want to go to camp for the rest of the week. As much as I enjoyed hearing all of her stories and how much fun she had when she was there..... I have to admit I really enjoyed not having to get up to an alarm this morning and I think the kids really enjoyed being able to sleep in too. We were all up by 8:30 am!!

Today I am sharing with you the card that I made for my Dad's birthday. This card was kept simple but I love the detail about it. My dad likes to paint and so I found some instructional painting kits for him, for painting slopes and water and forests...... I wonder if he has tried any of them yet?

Here is the card I made...

 The netting behind the picture is some tape that I found at the dollar store and thought it would be neat on a card. I found some neat buttons in my stash that I thought would go well and the picture itself is a mist from Lady Nickitta. I will provide a link with a picture of the mist a little later.

Here is a close up of the image so you can see what I did with it a little easier.

 I changed the image to a watercolour painting in photoshop added the text to the top and then printed it off on a special paper that I have that has the same texture like a canvas.

This is the mist that I got over at Lady Nickitta's blog. I watermarked the picture because I don't want anyone taking the image from my blog, I would love it if you visited her blog and searched through all of her mists and other great things that she has. She does offer everything there for Free! Here is a link to her blog for you Lady Nickitta's blog.

Have a great day and thanks for visiting!! Until next time :)