Cake Decor

When I was 12 years old, a friend of my mom's taught me how to decorate cakes. I loved it and for years and years would always make our cakes. Well, since most of my time is wrapped up in my family and paper piecing, there hasn't been much time for frosting lately.

This past weekend would have been my dad's 56th birthday. He passed away almost 4 years ago from Esophageal Cancer. Still, every year we bake him a cake for his birthday. This year, we bought a cake from Cold Stone and I used my Cricut to cut images that resembled my parent's home and their lives in Missouri at the time of his passing. The trees, the barn, dad's tractor, their ducks and two dogs, a black lab named Wya and a "Schnitzel" named Budnick. My girls, my nephews and niece and loved it! I thought it was a cute and different way to decorate a cake and I was really pleased with the way it turned out.

With over 30 Cricut cartridges, I'd say I am back in the cake decorating business!

°Ü°

Mother's Day Gift Certificate Tins

My friend, Marchelle, held an Open House this past weekend for friends and family who had goodies to offer for Mother's Day. She decided to make gift certificates for purchase and asked if I could do some tins for them to buy and put the certs in. I forgot how fun creating these tins are. The sky is the limit with them. My daughter made two of them for me. Here the 6 we made. All of them sold!

Tins are $4 and can be ordered in any theme. Also come in round.

Cricut Solutions & Shape Cartridges: What is this?

If you are in love with the bug that is the Cricut, as I am, than I am sure you have seen or at least heard of their new solutions and shapes cartridges. I absolutley love with this new line. The images are amazing and so detailed. Their Indie Art one is a must have if you have kid and teen pages or albums! The cuts are so "now" and my girls LOVE them. I have never heard so many "ewws and awes" while cutting. °Ü° However, there is a down side. I ordered mine from www.MemoryMiser.com like I always do (they are only $39.99) and when they came I was like, "What the heck is going on here?" All that came was a cartridge, key pad layover and tiny pamphlet. No case, no booklet. No wonder they are so much cheaper! In defense, the booklet is not necessary because there are no shift or shadows, you pick the size and cut! What I was really freaking out about, is how I am going to store them. Wouldn't you know it that they have that covered. They are getting ready to release Shape Cartridge Storage boxes. Each one holds 4 cartridges and their overlays. Very cool! I don't know how much everyone else is selling them for but MM has them for $8.99 a piece. I am getting ready to place my order right now! Oh, and they come in blue or peach so it makes organizing and finding easy. Check them out:

Awesome, huh?

Mother's Day: May's Scrapbook Class Pages

Man, it feels to good to get this spread done 2 weeks ahead of time! If you are having a sense of Dejavu, it is because you have seen this layout before. I did these pages a couple of months ago and sold them on Ebay. I REALLY liked them and regretted selling them when I was packaging them for shipping. Then, the light bulb went on and I knew I wanted similar pages for our scrapbook class albums for Mother's Day.

I have to admit, I was bias and put a lot of my personality into the colors of these pages. When I went into the scrapbook store, I had a completely different color scheme in mind and then I saw these new papers from Basic Grey, only one of my favorite companies, and thought, "This is them!" I love that they are kinda funky and chic and yet look at little 50's-60's to me and were perfect for "mom" pages.

I inked everything, of course. I tell you what I really miss on these pages is some stitching, but there is no way I can sew 13 spreads worth and keep my sanity, so the inking is the next best thing and ties all the colors together and gives it a cohesive look. There is a bit of difference from my original pages, though, I got a new Cricut cartridge, Home Accents, and used the vines instead of the flourish from the original set. I like the green so much better and I love how the littlest of flowers add that delicate touch. I, originally, drug out a bunch of brads for the centers of the flowers but after looking at it for a few it just seemed so "blah" to me and then I remembered that I had used gems on the first pages and pulled them out. I took all of the flowers off and replaced the brads with gem stones. There are 18 of them and they add just the touch I was going for! Unlike most of my designs, this one does not have a journaling tag, instead I used a frame which came from the Accents cartridge. I love this frame! I used the center cut-outs to frame in the quote. I also only used a little bit of ribbon this time. I wanted a dainty touch, something that won't over power the photos, because lets face it, there is A LOT going on other wise! °Ü°

The great news, that I am sure everyone will love, is that IT IS ALL CUT FOR YOU! My Cricut did all of the work for us this month. I know the last class was a bit brutal because NOTHING was pre-cut but I want you guys to know that I am so proud of you! Your pages turned out so great and I hope that when you look at them you will be proud of you, too. You should! YOU created a true paper piecing page! Everything on there was crafted by you and I want to thank you for no groans and no complaints! (You guys trust me way too much!) I have so much fun with this class, thanks for having me! Oh, I almost forgot, your kit will have the dark brown ink, please bring your green ink pad from March's class, you will need that for the green vines.

So, the class will be Thursday, May 22th at 6:30 pm. Early birds by 6:29 pm. The last two have been good ones, this month will be, too! Here are the pages:

Hope you guys like them. °Ü°

DESIGNED BY CJL

COPYRIGHT 2008

Easter: April's Scrapbook Class Pages

Tonight is scrapbook class #4 and we are going to be working on our April pages with an Easter theme. I really and truly loved the way these turned out. I was really hesitant with these pages because the paper was so adorable, I didn't want to mess them up with a bad layout!

I decided to add Easter paper piecings. I felt they would be a nice touch without over powering the photos and at the same time complimenting the paper design. I made a lamb, a chick peeper and a bunny. The pattern for the lamb came from my Tear Bear book which came from Teddy*Treasures. The bunny and chick came from the talented Lisa at Paper Piecings by Lisa, and as always, the paper and ink came from Majestic Memories.

The spread features 5 photo mats and a journaling tag that features the phrase: "Bunnies & Baskets" and slips behind one of the photos mats. I added lots of little flowers to add to the pages scenery and add some dimension to the pages. I just love how it looks like an out door scene, this is a great spread for Easter egg hunt pictures!

Anyways, the pictures say it better than I can:

The entire spread:

The left side of the spread

4x6 Quadruple photo mat

4x4 photo mat with chick peeper

Close-up of the chick. I realized when I was done that she looks a little sad, but endearing.

The little lamb

Bottom half of the page

Title

Right side of the spread

3.5x4 twin photo mats with flower and eyelet accents

A close-up

Journaling tag slips down behind this 4x4 photo mat

Beautiful scenery in the pages.

Mr. Bunny

So, the kits are cut and ready to go! A special thanks to my friend and life saver, Marchelle, for helping me hours on end last night get them all put together! It is going to be a fun class and I am looking forward to seeing everyone's little critters when they are done.

COPYRIGHT CJL 2008