Modge Podge meets Cricut

I used to play around with modge podge a VERY long time ago... like close to 15 years?! (eesh, i'm getting old)... I came across a container of it on sale and picked it up and it sat on the shelf for I don't know how long.  Since I've been following Modge Podge Rocks I've been itching to do something with it.  The itch has been scratched.  :)

Problem: toothbrushes & toothpaste in the drawer with everything else making an icky yucky mess (this can be blamed on the kids)

Solution: pick up some cheap organizing trays and label them (with MODGE PODGE and my super-handy-dandy cricut machine *happy sigh*)

And this is how they turned out:

I'm trying something new today... a link party. We'll see if I do this right... I'm amazed at how much inspiration I get from other people's projects and what I did today is a perfect example of what exactly inspiration is. 

I'll also give a shout out to  Modge Podge Rocks...

Aliens & Ewoks

It's Sci-Fi day at school.  Zane has no idea what he wants to be but is totally game to dress up like an alien.  Score for mommy, right?  An alien should be fairly easy to create.  Aidan is dead set on being an Ewok.  I don't even know where he figured out what an Ewok is.  I wasn't even sure what one looked like.  I had to google it to remind myself! 

These are the pictures the boys decided they liked and what I used for inspiration:

I feel like I cheated because all I made was masks... but the boys were happy with them and I didn't have to do as much work... just a bit of playing around in the Cricut Craftroom.  I purchased the Cricut Craftroom Exclusives Masks - Animals and just tweaked a few layers, combined and welded and voila... the finished products:

I'm not joking... these pictures make me full on GIGGLE.  Ohhhh *wiping the tears* I love my boys. 

Aidan the Ewok got some cotton ball fluff for texture and Zane the alien got a few extra wiggly eyes... he said he would need to keep his mouth closed for the smile because aliens don't have teeth.  LOL...

Chalk Board Vinyl Labels

I love chalk boards.  I love chalkboard vinyl even more.  I found this treasure through Sheila Gebhardt at Uppercase Living.  I had purchased some boring squares of it (a little larger than 12x12) some time ago and had it stashed away for a project. 

I've recently been scouring crafty blogs left and right for organization inspiration... and inspiration is what I found.  Lucky me to have everything on hand to make some labels for some of the glass canning jars I had sitting in the "I'm empty now" cupboard. 

These were SO simple to make, the square vinyl labels for the jar sides were just cut with my paper trimmer.  My boys have a stash of art supplies for their projects so I emptied one of their plastic containers and filled the jars, putting similar things together.  We have about four more containers to empty so hopefully I have enough empty jars in my cupboard to accommodate!  :)  The best part is that the labels are removable and ERASABLE! 

My second method incorporated the lids... I have a drawer in my desk that is literally a catch all for every random thing I don't know what else to do with.  So I trimmed the page down to fit on my cricut mat and voila... cut out some circles to fit the tops!  Easy, easy, EASY!  The only hard part was separating the vinyl from the sticker back.  I had to break out the exacto knife since I recently chopped my nails off.  I really wish this wasn't such a plain picture - I get so excited to take a picture of what I've created that I don't take the time to "stage".  Ants in my pants?  Yes...

These are my favorite half pint sized jars - tiny and perfect for holding paper clips, a couple sets of ear phones, binder clips, thumb tacks, coins, buttons... the small things that seem to float around in my desk drawer.  I have one in my kitchen for holding toothpicks and another one that keeps all my cake decorating frosting tips.  I think I'm going to dress some up and put them in my bathroom for catching jewelery and hair bands too! 

Baby's First Cut Souvenir: vellum envelope

Baby Clyde got a haircut!  Isn't he just the cutest thing?!

I made a tiny little envelope out of vellum to save his tiny little baby locks of hair.

I used my Creative Memories star punch (have had these for FOREVER!!) to make a background for the "CWR" (Clyde Warren Ruckert).  I chose the blues and reds and the stars because that was Clyde's nursery theme. 

The font is from the Robotz cartridge, the envelope was from the Cricut Craft Room Exclusive's "Teresa Collins Basics" and I'm pretty darn happy with how it turned out. 

Get Well Paper Bag Card/Book

I started to make a friend a "Get Well" card, knowing she loved tea.  Then I thought it might be fun to incorporate some tea bags into a little book of sorts - which I've seen done before (very cute!)... and ended up doing it all in a pre-made paper bag album.  I had made these paper bag albums forever ago, used to sell them on ebay when they were the latest and greatest. 



Here's what the front ended up looking like...

I used my cricut for the "get well" from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge

The cool part about paper bag albums is that if you make them correctly you have cool pockets (openings of the bag) to tuck things into.  In this case, I had some giant tags to which I added little pockets for the tea bags. 

I guess I didn't take a picture to show where the tags come out of.  To the left, you can see the edge of the tag peaking out of the opening... the tags are tucked right into the bag opening. 

I inked the edges of the printed sentences to add some interest









After I inked the edges I went over parts of it with some dark purple chalk







I also used some brads in addition to the adhesive keeping the pocket on

 I had a lot of different pages in this book but I'm just going to include the pages with the "tea quotes" and the teabag tags. 

Canning Jar Lid

I love canning jars.  I use them in my kitchen to store food stuffs (baking supplies, mostly)... I use them to give gifts, because they make a cute container when dressed up with a label or note/tag.  This one in particular is one that I frequently put together with a concoction of the repositionable glue used for making cricut mats sticky again.  It comes with some glue in the jar, a foam brush for applying the adhesive and directions (not pictured). 

Angry Birds, Part II

I never did save one of my Yellow Angry Birds, so here's a print screen (with a gray background instead of black - cuz right now i'm feeling lazy) of what I made in the cricut craft room.  I thought he turned out ok! 

Knights & Kings

I can't look at these pictures without giggling.  This was a VERY last minute "hey mom we have to dress up like knights and kings tomorrow" before they went to bed... needless to say, I may have spent too many hours with the duct tape, cricut machine and cardboard that night (errr... early morning) but the boys were thrilled with the outcome. 

Composition Book

I admit, I'm addicted to the bird.  So far it's been my favorite addition to any label I've made.  Today's post is dedicated to Miss. Hannah - we decorated some composition books for her to use at school and I thoroughly enjoyed not only the craftiness but watching her flip through my idea books.  I'm pretty sure she used an entire pad of post it notes to mark the things she liked.  To be fair, I gave her the post it notes and told her to do it... but it surprised me that she marked so many things!  The girl has got a sweet vintage flavor going on that I absolutely love. 

Here's my favorite of the day... We added a tiny little rinestone for the eyeball of the bird that turned out to be a cute embellishment

My cricut mats aren't sticky anymore

Being the frugal little freak that I am, I was a little bit dissapointed to find that it didn't take long for my cricut mats to loose their stickiness.  The cheapest I can find mats is about $12.00 for the 12x12 size that I like.  I'm sure I could use my Joann's coupon and get a bit of a deal on one but the fact of the matter is... I don't want to have to continue to buy them.  I did some searching online and my good ole YouTube didn't let me down.  I found a gal named Laurie with a SUPER tutorial on How to make your Cricut Mats Sticky & Reusable Again!!


It works, my friends.  The glue she uses is Aleene's "tack it over & over".  I got my 4 ounce bottle on Amazon.com for $8.97 with free shipping because it qualified for the super saver shipping and I purchased it with enough other qualifying items.  I think it might be fun to see how many mats I can re-stick with it so I'm going to keep track.  So far, it looks like I'm going to get a LOT of mileage out of it. 


Props to you, Laurie and thanks for the tip!  Check her out...

Angry Birds, Part I

You want an Angry Birds themed birthday party?  No problem... here we have PART I of who knows how many.  Hopefully I can get all the favorite characters done before it's party time!  I have a month or so... I can get it done, right?!  I started with the red dude and I'm quite pleased with how he turned out! 

I'm not even sure what all I'm going to be using them for... definitely the invites and some decor.  I'd like to make some gift bags for the kids to take home with goodies in them. 

I will say, piecing together random images from the few cartridges I have to create my own version of something was a bit harder than I thought it would be!  I ran into problems welding and learned the hard way that you have to make sure all pieces are welded, welding "A" to "B" won't work if you only have "A" set to weld.  If "B" is set to don't weld...  you gotta have both of them set!  It won't work no matter how many times you cuss at it.  Who knows how many pieces of paper I wasted, Cricut Craft Room forums I read and how many "how-to" YouTube videos I went through.  Let's not even get into CONTOURS.  Whew.  My mother always said I like to learn things the hard way.  :)

Here's my attempt to share the file as requested... not sure if I did it correctly, please let me know if I did or didn't :)
Red Angry Bird for gypsy
Red Angry Bird layed out

Sizzix No More

With the excitement of purchasing my cricut machine, I hadn't thought about the bulky sizzix die-cutter I've used for YEARS. I decided to box it all up and put it in storage with a pretty label that I made with my new CRICUT!

Is it apparent that I'm excited?! GOOD! Cuz I am.

I'm posting two pictures. One I took at my desk before I stuck it on the box and one after I realized I forgot the little piece on the wing. I used the "Robotz" font and the birdie came from "Simply Charmed".

Love Bug Magnets

My very first cricut creation: Love Bugs! I made these for my son's Valentine party at school. We put magnets on the back and voila... cuteness!