Purrrfect birthday

My mom's birthday is this week and despite being super busy, she is one person I don't want to give a store-bought card to.  So, here is a card I whipped up tonight.
Mom is a cat lover, so I used the cat face from Animal Kingdom.  I used my Cricut markers to outline his face and gave him some googly eyes.  In my hurry, I decided to hand write the sentiment rather than use my computer.  I just wish I would have thought to run the blue through my Cuttlebug before I taped it to the other piece.

This card will be entered into the following challenges:

Skipping Stones Design--sketch challenge #116

Paper Playtime #68--pets and a sentiment

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog--challenge #99 fancy trims (I used ribbon.)

Totally Papercrafts--challenge #104 Ribbons and/or bows

More Than Favors--Wacky Wednesday #65 Circles

Die Cuttin' Divas--Challenge #53 Favorite Pet

Scrapbookaholic by Abby--Dilo en español #3, birthday

Tuesday Throwdown #86--use blue

Gifts for my Scrap Girls

A few years ago, my sister invited me to scrapbook with her and her friends.  Since then, I've become a regular member of the group, even getting my "official" t-shirt :)
Our group recently submitted a HUGE CM order and I was the lucky party hostess reaping the rewards.  I decided to make a little thank you gift for them--personalized wine glasses with a coaster.
I picked up the wine glasses at second hand stores, and it's a good thing I did, since it took me a few glasses to really get the hang of it (Smoothing out the vinyl stencil on the rounded wine glasses was tricky!) and my husband ended up breaking one.  I made a vinyl stencil in my Cricut using Ashlyn's Alphabet and dabbed on Armour Etch, leaving it for 15 minutes.  This is a pic of one side of the glasses.  The other side is personalized.

I used the tutorial found here to make the coasters that slip around the base of the glass.

Happy Birthday to a real classic!

Mom invited my husband and I over to celebrate my dad's birthday tomorrow, so I couldn't put off making his card any longer!

The car and circles came from Holiday Cakes, a cartridge I'd picked up a while ago because it was a good price and I figured a variety of holiday images can always come in handy.  I hadn't used it until today though.  The black circle was run through the Diamonds in the Rough Cuttlebug folder and the green strip was run through the Spots and Dots folder.  With the patterned paper, I figured I'd better put the sentiment on one of the red circles, but I didn't have a stamp that small and didn't want to mess around with my computer printer, so I went with handwritten sentiments this time.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:

Skipping Stones Design #113--sketch challenge

Whimsical Designs--Bringing out the old (Holiday Cakes cartridge)

Die Cuttin Divas #50--Anything goes

Craft Spot by Kimberly--Anything goes

Birthday Sundaes--Challenge #41, Easel card

My first attempt at bottle cap magnets

My mom enjoys purchasing soda in glass bottles from a local bottling plant for our big family get togethers.  The bottles are small, which is perfect for all the kids in the family, and they come in lots of fun flavors like cherry and grape.  This summer, at one of our family get-togethers, I saved a handful of the bottle caps.  This week, during my Christmas vacation, I finally decided to try making some magnets with them.

I purchased a 1" circle punch to cut out the designs.  After using an Exacto knife and some tweezers (pliers would have been easier) to remove the rubber from the inside of the caps, I used Mod Podge to glue the pictures in.  After researching a bit online, I wanted to try using Diamond Glaze to fill in the caps.  I didn't find any at Joann's though, and rather than running around town to look for it at other stores, I decided to try using Glossy Accents.  I followed the directions and did not shake the bottle.  There were still a few tiny bubbles, which I removed the best I could with a toothpick.  When the Glossy Accents dried though, there were tons of minuscule bubbles.  When this bottle of Glossy Accents is gone, I think I'll try something else.  I used an old tube of Goop to glue the magnets on.
Here are the finished magnets:

Cricut Expression covers

Soon after I got my Cricut, I asked my mom to help me design a dust cover for it.  I had seen some online and knew that I could make one myself, and much cheaper.  We used a piece of old newspaper to trace the pattern and determined that 3/4 yard of fabric and a package of bias tape were needed.  I chose some double-sided quilted fabric.  Here is what I ended up with:

I saved the pattern, thinking I might want to make one for a friend in the future.  I was right--my sister bought a Cricut this year, so I made her a dust cover for Christmas.  Now that Christmas is over, I can post pictures of hers also:

Using some scraps...

When I use my Cricut, I often cut an extra shape or two in case one rips during the cutting.  Because of this, I had an extra sheep from a previous card.  I combined him with some other scraps to create this card, making it a one-of-a-kind.

The red circle was run through the Swiss Dots folder.  The red piece on the bottom was run through the Holly Ribbons Cuttlebug folder.  The sheep is from Animal Kingdom and the sentiment was printed on my computer (last year!).

This card will be entered in the following challenges:
Fantabulous Cricut #90--ribbon
Really Reasonable Ribbon--anything goes and ribbon
Whimsical Designs--something sparkly (my ribbon)

Paper clip angels

I first saw this idea at Linda's Creativity.  She also inspired Snoopy's Homemade Fun and I checked out her version as well.  Working in a school, I thought little ornaments made out of office supplies would be perfect.  My birthday is right before Christmas, and it always seems like if I bring in treats (as is the custom at my school), there are TONS of other treats that day anyway.  So, I thought I'd make these as my "birthday treat."  They're fat free!

I thought this style of paper clip was called "butterfly" paper clips.  I got some strange looks at the stores asking for those, though!  I shopped around at a couple of office supply stores, a local teaching store, and Wal-Mart.  The best deal I found was at Office Depot.  They had bags of 20 for $2.49.  (The package calls them "ideal clamps.")  I also had a bit of trouble finding metallic pony beads.  When I did find them at Michaels, I was disappointed.  The metallic beads all had a black spot the sides.  I ended up getting a different package of assorted metallic beads.  I used a variety of ribbon from my stash.
This summer, I bought a Stampin' Up stamp set called Cute Converse at a garage sale.  With that, I made some little tags that say "merry little christmas" on one side and "from me to you" on the other.  I made some with tags and some without.