Cricut Project #1

Here is my first Cricut project.

My very cute niece just celebrated a special day. Her first name begins with an H. I found an initial block at Michaels and decorated it for her.

I used the Tinkerbell Cart for the butterflies and Plantin SchoolBook Cart for the tag.





The paper is by Making Memories. I wanted to use girly colors but I also wanted them to be bright and cheerful. I think it turned out cute.

I discovered a few problems and it turned into a much bigger project then I initially planned for. My first problem was I did not have a font that matched up with the letter.

Lucky me I have a Computer minded hubby. Who loves to play and figure things out. Using a software program that is out on the market he was able to match the fonts up. I haven't purchased the program yet because there are a couple different ones and I'm not sure which one I want to get.

The two programs are SCAL and Make the Cut.

Have you heard of them? Which one do you prefer?

Merry Christmas!

Guess what I got for Christmas?

Guess what I got after three years of wanting?

Three years of reading every scrap of information.

Three years of watching infomercials.

Three years of driving my husband a bit batty.

Driving him to the point that not only did he give in but begged and pleaded that I accepted the gift.

:)

Did you guess?

Yup, Krissi got a Cricut.

Which I'm sure all the people I have driven crazy are a bit thankful. I can finally leave them alone and quit begging for their help. Though I appreciate their help because it proved to my husband that I just couldn't survive without a Cricut.

In addition to the Cricut I now have a Gypsy.

I am officially Happy. Not that I needed a Cricut and a Gypsy to be happy but you know it doesn't hurt.

I can't wait to show you the projects I have been working on. Also, share some of the many Blogs that I have found featuring some very cool Cricut projects.

Sewing Patches

This birthday my son turned 11 and in my world and his world that means that he moves from cub scouts to the world of scouting.

Let me tell you the very first thing that I learned as a mom of an 11 year old scout.

This is a whole new world of boy. Boy stuff that leaves us moms with question marks and a few of @#$!@# these floating in our brain. There is a whole language associated with scouting not to mention a whole new way to spend money. You thought those video games were expensive just wait until you go by a scout shirt.

Scout shirt, a badge, a few more badges, oh and don't forget the . . . the list goes on. Once you recover from the shock of the amount money you just dropped on Scouting you get the joy and the privilege of sewing all of those doo hickeys onto said shirt.

Adding insult to injury, while my son is trying to earn merit badges and a host of other things that I don't understand and feel their is a strong possibility I don't care to understand, there is no merit badge or award for me having to figure out where all these thingys go and sewing them on correctly.

Frustration, thy name is Scout Badges. Finally, I'm getting to the reason why this is on this blog. After sewing and unpicking and resewing I finally figured out how to sew the buggers on and keep them in place.

Friend, thy name is Tacky Glue. That is right I took a handy dandy bottle of tacky glue and glued all those badges into place. After an hour I sewed everything down. Nothing moved and if I do say so myself it looked great.

Oh I hear some of you saying why didn't I just by the things that make it so you can iron on the badges? Because that stuff does not wash well. In fact when the lady at the scout office tried to sell me the iron on magic badge junk. I specifically asked, "How does it hold up in the wash?" She answered by telling me how easy it was to adhere the patches, so I asked her again, "How does it hold up in the wash?" She answered by telling me how many patches I could iron on per package. After that I decided to just sew them on.

All I have left to say is Tacky Glue may help me survive this scouting world.

Healing Home

Have you ever fell in love with a song? Every time it comes on the radio you turn up the volume and sing. You bee bop down the road with a great big smile on your face. Thinking this is the coolest song, I love this song!

You listen to the song a million or so times and then one day you just stop. In fact you don't even think about it for a while. Then one day out of the blue it comes on the radio and you find your self with a big stupid grin on your face. Memories flood back to the time that you loved this song. Maybe you remember a car you had at the time a love or maybe just a great vacation.

I love how music does that. How one minute your driving down the street, zoned out, bored, duh ta duh, the next second you are belting out a song and remembering something great.

Currently I am reading a book called, "The Healing Home," by Suzi Chiazzari. Honestly it is a little hockey, a little over the top, a little crazy. You know all the things that I love. I don't think I am going to start burning incense in my home anytime soon but there is a chance that I can be talked into it.

I have a point, I swear I do, hold on just a few more seconds.

Well in this book she talks about all of the feelings that we release into our home. The good the bad, the ups the downs. She says that our homes collect all of these vibrations good, bad, and reflect them back to us at some time. So she says that we have to clear away the negative energy.

Okay, I'm getting there hold on a second more.

I know that sounds hokey but think about it sometimes you are just ornery and mean and you just can't get past it. Well our homes can add to this. Maybe you have been arguing with your spouse and every time you walk into the room you were arguing you just get angry all over again. Never move past it because of the negative energy hanging around in the room.

One of the ways she suggest removing this energy is with music. Play something you enjoy! So you know how you feel when your bee bopping down the street listening to that great song. Well what if you just listened to that song in one room of your house. Then every time you heard that song you would think of your house and get a stupid grin on your face. A big happy stupid grin.

I know hokey but you know what I am totally going to start doing it. Because it sounds like fun and if it makes me feel better what harm is there in it? I am going to assign each room in my house a song that reminds me of summer. Listen to that song in each room all summer long and next winter when I am dying and I just can't stand another minute of winter I will blast all of my summer songs and remember how great summer is. Total win win.

There is a few more great and yes totally hockey suggestions I will drop on you over the next few days. Happy Thursday!

Zinnias

Our seedlings are coming right along.  We are doing lots of gardening in our very own front room. Which helps in dealing with all the snow we have been getting. I wonder if I will ever garden outside again. 

Today I transplanted Zinnias they are getting very large and look like real plants.  I thought that along with growing seeds I would start to research the plants we are planting. Find out where the best place to plant them, how tall they are going to get, and any other helpful facts. During my research I have already found one or two things that we have done wrong.  

I'm not going to beat myself up this is all a learning process and half the fun is doing it better next year.

We started the following seeds February 27, 2009

The package said that they would take 7-10 days for the seedlings to emerge.  It took about 5.

Today the plants look this

Hi gals, you are looking beautiful

Sorry about the transplanting I didn't know you didn't like that.  Please don't die and I promise some yummy fertilizer soon.

In case your interested here is what I found out during my research, more then you ever thought you wanted to know.

Zinnias are popular garden flowers. They are easy to start from seed, grow quickly and adapt well to many gardening situations. Zinnias seem especially favored by butterflies, and many gardeners add zinnias specifically to attract them.

Zinnias are one of the easier annuals to start from seeds. Seed can be started indoors and seedlings can be transplanted easily outside for earlier bloom. Sow seeds indoors six weeks before the last frost and plant outdoors after frost danger is past as young plants are susceptible to cold. Sow the taller varieties in 3-inch peat pots because they resent transplanting. They will not grow substantially until temperatures are above 50 degrees.

Alternatively, seeds can be sown directly outdoors when the soil has warmed sufficiently. Germination is not as good in cold soil. Pinch the tops out of young plants when they are 4-6 inches high to make them bushy. Remove faded blossoms to keep them producing.

Plant spacing should allow for air circulation, and bottom watering will circumvent mildew problems. Plans should be spaced 4 to 12 inches apart according to variety.

The best way to prevent insect problems is to use other plants that attract beneficial insects that will feed on the pests, such as companion planting.

40 Days Until Planting Day

Growing up I lived in a house that sat on a quarter acre of property. My parents loved gardening, yard work, and creating a beautiful yard. I hated gardening, yard work, and anything that made me be outside.

Outside was yucky, being outside in the summer makes you sweat. I hated getting my hands dirty, gardening makes your hands dirty. I hated weeding, mowing the lawn, planting flowers, all of it in my book was the pits.

Every spring and summer my parents and I had a deal. Saturday when they headed outside to work in the yard I stayed inside and worked. I thought it was a sweet deal. I thought they were all suckers. Sweating, dirty hands, grass clippings. Yuck, yuck, and more yuck!

Now that I'm all grown up I have had an obvious change of heart. Housework equals yuck, yuck and more yuck. Give me the garden, sun, sweat, and summer any day. Let the sun kiss my face, let heat warm the winter right out of me, let the garden renew my spirit.

There are times when I am with my mom and dad and we are talking about gardening or exercise or the fact I teach swim lessons that I see a dumb founded expression cross over their faces. The kind of look that says, "Who are you and what did you do with our daughter?"

It is kind of interesting, this getting older business, I look in the mirror and see the wrinkles starting to form, the grey hair at my temples, and I just cringe. When did that happen? Then I go out into my garden and see the flowers popping up and smile.

Ahh, the reason for the wrinkles.

Smiling.

Anyway if any of you have an explanation for the obvious change of heart feel free to hypothesise. Meanwhile I have some flowers that need transplanting. Hope you enjoy the flowers progress. My front room is turning into a jungle.

53 Days until Planting Day

The weather has been absolutely beautiful. It really makes you feel like summer is coming. I can't tell you how excited that makes me. 

Our seedlings are growing and growing. We have even moved some into their own little pots. Last year our biggest problems occurred when we moved the seedlings into their own pots.  We are waiting a little bit longer and hoping that the more established roots will help in the transplanting. Have I mentioned what armatures we are when it comes to gardening.

These are Cosmos I have a feeling that they don't like being started indoors.  We found this out last year with Sunflowers. When we started them indoors they never reached their full height.  They were also smaller and didn't quite get as hardy as the ones we started outside.  We are watching the Cosmos but I have a suspicion that next year we will be starting them outdoors.

These crazy little plants my youngest daughter picked out. They are coming up just like grass how weird is that? They are about two weeks ahead of schedule so they must like the environment.  



The first plants to be transplanted, Morning Glory and Zinnias.

We are learning and if everything keeps growing I will be planting all season long.

H.H. is getting very impatient to start the vegies.  He keeps reading the back of the packets and hoping that today is the day he can plant.  We all know the information on the back of the seeds changes magically in the middle of the night.

I'm kidding, I know that he is really excited to get started.  I am too. I love being out in the yard working in the garden. Watching all these flowers grow is just making me itch more and more to get outside.