Birthday Bouquet - Paper Flowers

Today is my one and only sister's birthday. She is almost 3 years older than me, but I will be nice and not give out her actual age. :) I spoke with her this morning while she was on her lunch break to wish her a Happy Birthday. Then I drove to her school (where she works) to surprise her with this lovely bouquet I made. She was definitely surprised and absolutely loved the gift. She called me later to let me know how much the other teachers loved the gift idea. Thanks so much to SusanBlueRobot for her lesson in making these beautiful paper flowers!!

Now for the little story behind the tin. I had completed this project for my sister and thought the pastel colors for spring were perfect for her. My youngest niece (who is not quite 3 years old) happen to be staying the night with me and had seen the completed bouquet along with the cricut and supplies on my table. Well, she decided she wanted to make something, so she picked out the lady bug. I picked out the red and black paper, thinking we could cut it out and she would play with it and take it home with her the next day. She also wanted to use the glitter and helped as best she could. Well, the next morning she picked up the lady bug and placed it in the tin and said it was for "Tia Cris." (aunt Cris) So, after she left that day, I decided I just HAD to add it to the bouquet...so the actual lady bug is courtesy of our little niece, Irelyn!

I barely survived the weekend...

We had a blast scrapbooking this past weekend. We stayed up until 4:30am on Friday night and then 3:30am on Saturday. Can you believe we were actually up and had the cricut going again by 9am the following mornings?! Talk about sleep depravation...lol.

We actually completed several layouts among all the laughing, chatting and eating! Lori is an amazing cook and she took the time to make two delicious dinners. I swear I felt like I was staying at a 5 star resort all weekend!! Thank you Lori for the FABULOUS weekend!

I will post my completed projects later. :)

Count down to my scrapbook weekend getaway...

Wow, the month of April is alomst over and I have nothing to post! I do have a good excuse though...lol, I was on VACATION!! :D Hubby and I had a blast in South Texas, although we didn't make it to the Island, we still had fun sipping margaritas in the sun.

While on vacation I was pleasantly surprised to have receieved an email from Sandy (on the cricut message board). She was congratulating me for making the Cricut Newsletter with my niece's Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader layout. What exciting news!!

My friends and I have been planning a scrapbook weekend gathering and I'm so excited that it is this weekend....finally a chance to do some more scrapbooking! My friend Lori has a GI-NORMOUSLY beautiful house and lives an hour away from me. Plenty of room to lay out all our scrapbooking supplies...child free....and we can stay up as late as we want...what fun!

I am lucky to have a group of girlfriends who have all been friends since elementary school. Yes, that means 30 years! Although we don't get to see each other on a weekly basis, we do keep in touch regularly and always make time to see each other as often as possible. So, this chance to get together and scrapbook is perfect for some "girlfriend" time!

I'll have to post some layouts when I get back...until then, Happy ScrapN' !

The Mini Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader

I've been working on my oldest niece's scrapbook and found this picture of her at the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders Competition. She danced for the "pee-wee" drill team at her school and once a year they would compete at Texas Stadium. The teams with the highest scores in their categories would be invited to perform with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders during half-time at one of the Cowboy's home game. Her dance team got to perform 2 years in a row at a Dallas Cowboy game...These girls were definitely on cloud nine! What an honor for these young "Texas" girls and a memory they will share for a life time!

Easter Egg Tin

Our family gathers for Easter at my brother's house every year. The kids have their yearly egg hunt and we always have more than enough good food to eat. I decided to make this tin for our gathering next month.

We also have a tradition of making "cascarones" (confetti eggs) for Easter. Our family has been making these (by hand) ever since I can remember. Guess you can say we were "crafty" way back then too...lol. Now days you can actually buy them already made, which in my opinion, takes away from the fun of making them yourself. Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of photos from last Easter showing the results of our "cascarones." (I have not scrapbooked these photos yet, but do plan on getting them done soon) Thanks for looking!!

Family Tradition

One of our family traditions is to make Tamales during the Christmas holidays. We set aside a day that is available for everyone and we all gather at "Grandma" & "Grandpa's" house to do the work. It's an all day process and a lot of work, but we have fun doing it! As "Grandma" says..."If you don't help make 'em, you can't help to eat 'em!!"

We always end up with several dozen for each family to take home and of course there is always extra to share with our neighbors and friends.

This photo was taken when my oldest niece & nephew were little. They are "helping" Grandpa make tamales.

Pouty Lips

This pretty much says it all...

Medieval Centerpiece

I decided to make this for my youngest nephew Trais' birthday. His party theme was "Medieval Knights" and I thought this would fit the 6 year old perfectly. I filled the tin with small suckers for the kiddos. He definitely enjoyed it!

Simple But Sweet

Yes, I'm all about simple and quick layouts!

Rock Candy Bouquet

My oldest niece turned 18 on Valentine's Day. Since that fell on a Saturday this year, I decided to make this and surprise her at school with it on the Friday before her birthday. She loved it!

Golf Ball Centerpiece

I made this for my Dad's 63rd birthday last month. He is newly retired and enjoys playing golf, so I thought I would be a little creative and fill the tin with golf balls. He definitely got a kick out of this!

I recently joined a Cricut message board and decided to post this project for others to view. I was completely shocked to see that within a few days of posting this, it was selected to be featured in the March 2nd Newsletter. As they say in the Cricut world..."it made the Chirp!"

Sucks Bucket - Centerpiece

I saw something similar to this on a Cricut message board and decided to make one for my brother's 32nd birthday.

I'm A Big Girl Now

I got some new glitter paper (DCWV) and found some cute pictures to add to my scrapbook.

Always In My Heart

This is the first scrapbook layout I made using the Cricut Expressions hubby bought me for Christmas in 2007.