Trick or Treat buckets using Pumpkin Carving cartridge

I was going make my boys a trick or treat bucket for this year and when I was at Michaels last week standing in the check out line they had these orange (they also had purple and black) buckets in the $1 bins near the cash registers.  I grabbed 6 of them so I could make them for some of our friends kids.  I used the Pumpkin Carving cartridge, but also used the George cartridge to cut a few of the triangles so that I could mix up the face cut I used on the Pumpkin Carving cart so that none of the buckets looked the same. 

I am going to fill Joseph's, Maria's, Jacquelyne's and Carson's buckets with a few treats before I give them to them next week! 

Thanks so much for looking!  Your comments brighten my day!

Yesterday was the Fall Walk fundraiser at my boy's school and it was a wonderfully fun day for the kids!  Mother Nature wasn't the most cooperative, but thankfully she held out until the last group was walking which just so happened to be the older kids, my Parker included.  It was fine at the very beginning of their time slot, but then it started to rain a bit.  THEN it started to HAIL!!!!!  The hail was only about the size of a pencil top eraser, but holy moly it was freaky!  The kids took cover underneath the entrance to the school while we had about a 5 minute delay and then everything stopped and the kids went back to walking!  All in all it was a great day for the kids and our school!

After the Fall Walk, Jim and I had to oversee Cheese Club for the school and on our way home there was the most beautiful rainbow just across our street!!!  Actually for a brief moment a double rainbow was visable!  I was able to capture some pretty nice shots on my camera that I just happened to have because of everything going on at the school that day.  Hopefully I will get a chance to upload those pictures today so I can share them with you!

Hope everyone has a fabulous Friday and a wonderful weekend!!! 

Black cat pumpkin

Isn't this cute?  I am the furthest thing from a cat lover, but when I saw something similar sitting on a porch of a house I drove by a few weeks ago, I knew I had to try making my own version.  Super simple and makes a great outdoor decoration!  The whiskers are pipe cleaners, the ears are leaves hot glued on, obviously I used more of Kristen's blog candy googly eyes and the tail is branch from some type of evergreen tree with the needles removed!

Close up of the ear



Of course my head is working over time trying to come up with ideas for some other painted pumpkin animals!  I was thinking that a spider would be really cool that maybe you could use small mini pumpkins painted black for the legs and somehow put wire through them to attach to the body part.  Although....I think that would take quite a few mini pumpkins with eight legs and all! lol  Then I thought about a turkey!!!  You could make a turkey very easily with real feathers!  Or how about a snowman with the pumpkins all painted white!!!  It's not out of the question for us to have snow here in Michigan on Halloween!  I'm hoping it doesn't happen this year, but I have many memories of trick or treating growing up with my snowsuit covering my costume! 

My boys are loving this addition to our family even though his stay is going to be a limited one.  :)  Hope you all have a magical day!  

HURRY! It's your chance to win a Gypsy!

Lisa is giving away a Gypsy on her blog, but you need to hurry because she's drawing a winner when she reaches 400 comments and she's already at 172 comments!!!  So head over to Lisa's blog Paper Fashions and get your comment posted!  Don't forget to become a follower in case you win! 

Wahooo!!! DCWV 12x14 ADHESIVE paper stacks!!

Is it even possible for my love of paper to grow stronger than it already is???  After seeing the news posted on the DCWV Diary blog if thinking it can!!!  Check out her blog for more information and a chance to win a stack of this awesome paper.  I {{{heart}}} DCWV!!!!

Halloween treat bags!

Here are the trial versions of the treat bags that I'm going to be making for my boys classroom parties coming up in a few weeks.  I was working on these last night when I realized that I didn't have any googly eyes!  Oh the horror!!  I was waiting for my hubby to get home so I could run out to M's or J's to pick up a couple packages.  When he got home he walked in with the mail and in the mail was an envelope full of goodies from Kristen that I had won last week on her blog and guess what was inside?!?!  YEP!  GOOGLY EYES!!!  For once something went right for me! lol  So a big shout out to Kirsten for saving me last night!

Both of these were cut from Mini Monsters.  I love all the cute cuts on this cartridge!  I used the awesome Martha Stewart Glitter Pens which I LOVE for the details!   I am going to submit these for a challenge over on Andrea's blog Love is in the Details . 

Thank you for stopping by and hope you all have a magical day!

Happy Fall plaque with vinyl

Hello everybody!  I created something today that is going to be entered into a few challenges.  I purchased a slate plaque at Joanns the other day in the clearance aisle.  I ended up paying just a little over $3 for it!  I brought it home and painted it with some Krylon paint and then used some of my brown Cricut vinyl to make this Happy Fall hanging for our front door! 

I started designing my cuts on my Gypsy and I couldn't find just the right tree.  It needed to be a tree with at least one leaf to qualify for one of the challenges.  I know that you can search on your Gypsy, but I hardly ever use that feature now because of Cricut Search .  For those of you who haven't checked out this amazing website yet, please make sure you do!  I had a tree picked out for my plaque, but then when I searched for a tree on Cricut Search I found what I thought was the perfect tree!  The perfect tree that I would have never found otherwise, because I wouldn't have ever thought about looking on the ZooBalloo cartridge for a fall looking tree, but that is exactly where I found my tree!!!  Then I decided to add a little something to my design and was looking for a basket of leaves.  Nothing came up when I searched for that so then I just typed in "leaves".  That's when I found the little girl and boy cut from the A Child's Year cartridge and I thought they were the perfect compliment to my tree!  I'm very pleased how this turned out!

This is what my clearance plaque looked like to begin with

Then with just a few coats of this....

I ended up with this!

Then after a little vinyl magic this is my finished project!

Sorry about the glare on the bottom left hand corner!  It was actually a beautiful sunny day here today!  I will take all of those that Mother Nature is willing to give us!  I am going to be submitting this for the following challenges:



At least one leaf with Cricut cut used @ http://www.fantabulouscricut.blogspot.com/

Altered item challenge @ http://www.inkingitupcrazy.blogspot.com/

Fall creation NOT Halloween @ http://www.kandrewdesigns.blogspot.com/

Thank you so much for stopping by!  I feel like I'm finally starting to get my crafting mojo back and I cannot tell you how much all of your kind words and support has meant to me during this past month!  {{{HUGS}}} to all of my friends, family and faithful followers!  

Husband Cricut & Gypsy Training 101

As most of you know I was on bedrest at the end of last month and I had committed to making alot of cuts on my Cricut for our Homecoming parade float.  My wonderful husband jumped right in and learned how to use my Cricut AND my Gypsy and saved the day(s)!  I can't remember how many 12X12 sheets of each he had to cut, but he ended up cutting a total of 120 cattlehead and 120 small stars along with 30 full 12X12 stars all by himself!  When he first started he was actually having a good time and made the comment that it was "kinda fun"  but after about 2 hours of continuous cutting he was looking at me saying "I don't understand why you find this enjoyable!"  lol  God love him!  He was so relieved when my bedrest was over and I was able to do the welding and cutting of the words and the city scape myself, although he made a wonderful assistant putting the paper on the mats and removing the cuts after they were finished!  There is no way that I would have been able to complete the things that were needed for the kids cowboy vests or the float itself without him.  I have the best hubby in the world!  I love you Jim!!!

The theme for Homecoming this year was City Nights and our elementary school was given Dallas.  I was less than thrilled with our assignment, but we ran with it and I think that our float turned out really nice after a wonderful group effort!  We had two wonderful parents who are very handy at the art of paper mache' and made an awesome bull head for us!  The kids had a blast making the grocery paper bag vests, which were the perfect project for them to work on while the parents were putting together the big parts of the float. 

We couldn't have asked for a more perfect week weather wise here while making the float as well as the night of the parade.  Last year we were battling 30 MPH winds with rain and temps in the low 30's!  I'll take what we got this year anytime! 

Here are some pictures of the cowboy vest creating, float building and the parade night.  Thanks so much for taking the time to look.  I'm very proud of my husband being willing and able to jump in when I needed him!

Our Parker making his vest

another student's creation

Our Tanner's finished creation that he is still wearing and very proud of!



Me along with my wonderful husband and boys!

Parker looking mean like the bull!  lol



Homecoming parade night!

One of our awesome moms as our rodeo clown!

Tanner by the time we reached the end of the parade route!  I see a future in the dramatic arts in his future!

One last thing that I would love for you to check out if you have a few spare minutes...  One of the amazing teachers at our HS (that just happens to be realted to our amazingly talented paper mache' parents!!!) put together and produced a fantastic music video of the kids performing their own version of the song Live Your Life by TI and Rihanna.  It's fantastic!  It's a You Tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJhQywSmfc

Have a terrific Tuesday my friends!!!