Mother's Day mini recipe books

A few nights ago, I started mini recipe albums for my mom and mother-in-law for Mother's Day. I found these chipboard albums for (shhhh...$1!) at Target. There are 5 chipboard pages, so minus the front and back, there is room for 8 recipes. I am putting some of my favorite ones in there, including MOST from The Pioneer Woman, I love her and her recipes! They are so delicious and pretty easy.

The books aren't done, but here's a sneak peek. I am using Hobby Lobby Paper Studio Glitter Pack. I think the name is Sugar and Spice and the From My Kitchen Cricut Cartridge. I will post pictures of the inside pages when I'm all done.

Behind the scenes

This is what my craft table looks like after I'm done for the night. Scary, right? It makes me shudder. I have to clean it up before bed or I won't sleep. Just a fact of my organized OCD life. I also told my hubby I needed a bigger craft table now that my Cricut takes up a good chunk of it. He rolled his eyes.

Card! I did NOT get much scrap time in this weekend :( Saturday I cleaned for about 7 hours straight and I woke up yesterday feeling horrible and the cold was back! I had a few minutes last night to put together this card for my brother-in-law's birthday this week. They really need to come out with a "manly" cartridge so I can make more "manly" cards!!!!

I used Stampin' Up card stock and a new patterned paper stack from Michael's.

i miss u

Hi everyone! I have been hit by a mac truck. Well that is what I feel like anyway! Somehow, I guess 2009 was just not enough of me being sick with h1n1 and viral meningitis and 2010 needed to give me a cold....yes, in the SPRING! How annoying. I have been super tired lately, but last night I really wanted to get a little crafting time in. I made this cute card. I have no idea who I would send it to, but I loved the sea horses. Someday I will take Create a Critter out of my Cricut and move on, but for now, it's my absolute favorite and it's staying put!!!

Here's another layout. Can you tell my favorite color is pink? Note to self: Erin needs better stamp pads. I think I'll order a few from Stampin' Up!

I love to scrapbook. Sometimes, I just like to knock out a bunch of layouts and not worry about perfecting them and making them amazingly embellished and earth shattering. Sometimes, simplicity is key. I am almost caught up with my daughter's 2 year book, but I just ordered 50 prints from Walgreens and I need to go pick those up. It seems like I will never get caught up! I got a few layouts done this weekend and I'm happy with a little progress!

Happy Saturday!

Good afternoon bloggies! I've had a productive morning. My daughter and I ran a few errands and picked up a few more of these beauties. They are just sooooo gorgeous! I will plant them later today. Now that my daughter is down for a nap, I'm off to the craft room, will hopefully have a few projects to post later. Have a great day!

Grill Master

I had the pleasure meeting Barb today! Barb is a Stampin' Up demonstrator and thanks to her awesomeness, I got some GREAT paper deals during a recent sale! I got to meet her, see her amazing craft room (one word: jealous!) and also pet her two very sweet puppies. She always is having some sort of great deal or package going on, so be sure to check out her site here.

I met my family for dinner tonight at a great Mexican restaurant after work. By the time I got home and put my daughter to bed, I just visited my craft room for a few minutes just long enough to put a quick card together to try out my new paper.

The patterned paper and card stock is from Stampin' Up (their card stock truly is amazing!) and I used the From My Kitchen cartridge for the grill. Crop-a-dile punch for the grommets. Now I want more Stampin' Up paper!!!

And of course, I used my ATG 50. More on the verdict of this tape adhesive in a coming post...

In honor of the Cricut Cake launch

I didn't spend time in my craft room last night (insert sad face here). Laundry and other motherly duties sometimes take priority...okay always. I got on my phone this morning and saw all the excitement that's buzzing with the Cricut Cake. It launched last night at midnight on HSN, and I have to admit, it looks pretty amazing. I didn't think I would want it, and still probably won't get it. Time will tell... I used to decorate a lot of cakes back in my Wilton instructor days, but cakes were SO much work and took SO much time. I still enjoy doing them for my family though.

In honor of yummy cakes, here is a picture of my daughter's 2nd bday cake I made for her back in September.

thank you gift

Since my mom made my daughter such a cute, thoughtful outfit, I decided to make her something in return to show my gratitude for everything she does. I am going to get a Starbucks gift card and put it in this bag I made with the card to match.

I had to get my crafty side from somebody

My mom has been sewing for as long as I can remember. She always used to make my sister's and I's Halloween costumes, prom dresses and all my bridesmaid dresses. She is a sewing genius! I learned some from her, but I would love to learn more - if only I had MORE time. She made this cute Dora outfit for my daughter with a matching hat. It has shorts but you can't see them. I love it and so does my daughter. Thanks mama!

spent time in the bathroom tonight.

Did my title get you to read more? ha. sorry, advertising nerd coming through. I wanted to try a little easy vinyl project. It's most likely coming down, but I like the concept. I'm going to do something bigger and better to fit the style but the verdict is in: I like working with vinyl, it's super easy!

creepy doll vs cute doll

My daughter has been toting around this little doll we got at Target. NO idea what happened to her clothes. For some reason, all the dolls at our house get "misplaced" and I can't find them anywhere. Perhaps we have a baby clothes gremlin? Kind of related to the sock gremlin....

After seeing my daughter carry around this creepy naked baby for a few days, I started to think I was going to start having nightmares. Please see exhibit A:

Scary, right? So last night I thought alright, this poor girl needs an outfit. So I whipped out this thing:

After wiping a little dust off, my sewing machine was going to see some love after a few months sitting in the dark closet! And soon after, I realized why it sits in the closet....THE BOBBIN. Hate that thing. No matter how many times I load it, it gets tangled with the thread. OY!

Anyway, after much frustration and a little cursing, here's baby's outfit. Much better!

Organization 101

Let's call this a little lesson in organization. Organization is the key to a stress free life, my friends. Especially in a craft room. When you have paper, stickers, buttons, bows, ribbon, stamps, die cuts, little pieces, big pieces, flowers, pens, cartridges, fabric, pins, needles, thread...ok I could go on and on. Anyway, when you have a LOT of stuff in one space, you have to keep organized to keep sane. How else are you going to find that ONE little sticker you KNOW is somewhere that would be PERFECT for this ONE scrap page?

I spent a little time Sunday organizing all my little goodies. I went to Target and bought a snap on case for $7.99 and I love it, it's great for all my little die cut pieces and it stacks so it's tall and doesn't take up a bunch of space.

Rock on card

I made this card yesterday for My Pink Stamper's Green Pink and Black color challenge. I love how she turned out - pale and dark hair just like me!

For this card, I used the new DCWV card stacks from Michaels. They are $14.99 and come with 48 sheets or 52 can't remember (Neutrals and Brights). I used Once Upon a Princess Cricut cartridge for the rocker chick, a star brad for her shirt and rhinestone stickers for her eyes, a rub on I had in my collection and the star Cuttlebug embossing folder. So fun! I loved how it turned out.

Thanks MPS for encouraging creativity and giving me a good reason to get in my craft room yesterday!

I'm hoping to scrap a few layouts for my daughter's 2 year book today. We'll see how far I get since I have house cleaning, laundry and flower planting on my list for today!

Winner winner chicken dinner (or stamps)

I feel so loved. In a matter of just a few weeks, I have 61 followers. I'm not going to give my blog candy giveaway all the credit for these amazing followers, I'm going to just go with the fact I make cute stuff everyone likes to look at ;) yeah right, we all know we want free stuff!

Anyway....the random number generator at random.org came up with the winner so don't blame me if it's not you.....

Donna (ODonnaSmith)! YOU WON! You won the stamps! WOOT WOOT.

Please email me with your address, they are ready to go in the mail today and need a home :)

Thanks everyone for playing. Once I hit 100 followers, I'll have another giveaway so follow me cause I'm almost there!

Welcome to the jungle

I wanted to try a trifold card. This card is for a friend who just had a baby. She named her little boy Clive, isn't that so cute? I used DCWV jungle stack for the glitter card stock and cut the monkey from my Create a Critter cartridge.

In other news, I bought an ATG gun yesterday which I'm also really excited about - no more cheapy adhesive runners! I go through so many of those darn things, it's ridiculous. I'm hoping it will be here by the end of the week. And for those followers who AREN'T scrappers, don't worry, it's not a real gun, just a really big orange adhesive runner :)

I made this card for my hubby's birthday. I was pretty happy with the way my little hippo turned out. I LOVE the layers on Create a Critter, they are SO easy to do! The stamp is from the $1 section clear stamp sets at Michael's.

My daughter's Easter card. I was highly annoyed because I had a stamp that said "somebunny loves you" but I COULDN'T for the life of me get it to look right on some trial paper. Oh well!

These Easter baskets were so easy. I made these for my daughter's teachers. Filled them with candy and we were good to go!

Let the good times roll