Playing on the Walls

I am embarking on a new project today. I took the 1980's wallpaper down from the last room in my house this summer and painted it instead. The bathroom now looks a little plain, so I am going to use some vinyl and original canvas artwork to spruce it up. I can't wait to get it done and to share it with you.

In the meantime, I have a couple of pics to share with you of some vinyl lettering artwork I did the middle of January over at my friend, Angie's, house. The first one is in her bedroom. We originally only did the "Wake Up" and "Wonderful" in the light blue, but it was a struggle to see them. Since I used the Cricut Craft Room to make the projects, all I had to do was "un"slant the lettering and cut again in brown. Now it looks like the blue is a shadow. The scroll work above was a metal piece she already had on the wall. The font is from Opposites Attract.

This one is on the back wall of her laundry room, which she completed as part of a remodeling of her home. I love the saying - it fits my friend's mothering style to a "t" (completely practical). It looks like the "n" in laundry is smaller than the other letters, but it isn't. All the letters were sized evenly in Cricut Craft Room, so it is an optical illusion. The scroll above the letters came from the Cricut Cake Basics. The center flower is from page 64 (filgree3). The trails to each side of it are from page 55 (swirl4). I used the "flip image" on the R one to create the mirrored images. The fonts are from Plantin School Book and Opposites Attract.

The two of us also did a Marilyn Monroe saying on the wall of her tween's playroom. The wall was brown and the vinyl was white and red with silver stars sweeping from the top L down to the bottom R of the wall. The saying was something about make-believe. She also has some hollywood glamour posters up in the room. I thought she was very creative in coming up with a way to update an older child's "play" area! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it.

Thanks for looking! Have a great day!

Don't burst my bubble!

Claire's birthday was the middle of the month of May. Our month was so busy we had to cancel a few things just to find time to have a party for her!

When we first moved to this house 4 years ago, I painted her room this yellow with a small section over by the windows the bubble gum pink. We decorated in Dora, but Dora was quickly outgrown. For the last 2 years I have been wanting to find a theme that would fit my decidedly less-than-frilly girl, but wouldn't require repainting. She adores Bobby Jack so this was a perfect fit for both of us.

I used vinyl in a teal, chocolate brown, golden, and bubble gum pink to create the wall decor. Obviously, the lettering and bubbles were simple cuts on the cricut. Bobby himself is made from circles and ovals as well. The only thing hand cut are his eyes and nose. But even the eyeballs were simple circular cuts. The lettering of the Bobby Jack signature came from the Opposites Attract cartridge. The caption lettering came from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, along with all the ovals and circles. I used the monkey on the comforter as my pattern. By employing some algebra, I was able to keep my ratios the same when I enlarged it onto the wall.

I had a lot of fun with this quick project. It took me about 4 hours to complete. Not a bad time investment to get a one-of-a-kind look!

Simple Cricut Lettering

I wanted to share with you some very simple lettering with the Cricut. I only have 2 font cartridges for my Cricut. I keep thinking I am going to invest in the Sure Cuts A Lot software that would allow me to use any font program on my computer on my Cricut, BUT I haven't done that yet. So, this was an experiment to prove to myself - and all those who have EVERY cartridge under the sun, that less can be more. These pages have all been completed in the last couple of weeks. I am ashamed to admit that they cover a vacation that happened a year ago. In my world, less has to be more because I keep getting more and more and wishing for less and less! Can I get an amen?

Starting with the top left 'Backlot photos", this was done with the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, using the basic font in red and the shadow feature in gray. Next, I switched to the Opposites Attract cartridge. For the word "Zaniness" I used the upright round feature and then the Trapezoid feature for "Muppets". Instead of using the actual trapezoids, I used the negative space from the cut. This created a really nice contrasting line across my page. In "POP Century" I combined my two cartridges using the Plantin Schoolbook for the POP, with the shadow feature as previously shown, and then the upright lettering on the Opposites Attract cartridge for the "Century". Finally, on "Disney World" I used the basic lettering on Opposites Attract and then went back over the lettering with a glitter pen. I loved how closely this mimicked the Disney font without paying for a whole new Disney font cartridge. The point of this lettering is to create a feel, a theme, a look, and not to be an exact replica. For me, keeping $30 in my pocket is worth the "knock off".

What I am most interested in is ideas for adhering the lettering to my pages and cards. I have tried the mini tape runner that Creative Memories used to sell. It worked OK, but my understanding is that they have discontinued that product. The glue pens from Zig tend to be messy in my opinion. What I am using right now that seems to be working very well is the Xyron 1.5" sticker maker. The only downside to it that I can see is the time it takes to get the letters to align in there so you are wasting as little sticker tape as possible. If you have any other ideas or suggestions I would love to hear your comments!

For those Cricut Addicts out there, I have a chalenge for you: How many projects or layouts can you do using only 2 cartridges before you get bored or hit a wall?

Thumbody Loves You!

And that thumbody is Me!!!
I must be a sucker! I got roped into heading up the valentine parties at the kids' school. Truth be told, I LOVE to plan parties. But I don't love trying to get 20 different personalities to cooperate with each other. It's like herding cats!

But, something fun has come out of the endeavor. A little silver in the cloud linings. One of the classes found an adorable foam craft project at Oriental Trading Company, but the cost of the kits, especially for being only foam, was cost prohibitive. So, I took it to the Cricut.

I am limited on my cartridges, so I had to improvise a little bit. The base/pot is from the Celebrations cartirdge. That's right - the birthday cartridge. I used on page 117 and then cut the bow off to become the flower pot. I did it again on my patterned paper cutting off the bow and the top lip to give the pot dots. The grass is from Plantin Schoolbook, p. 69. The stem is a lollipop stick that I stamped with ink to get the green color. The petal itself is from Accent Essentials . Although I did find quite a few other flower heads on other cartridges so look and see what you can find. I chose this one because it most resembled the flower on the OT piece and the shape was nice with the thumbrpints. The saying is hand done, but when I go to do 100 of these, I will be printing them out on the computer. The heart is from the Plantin SchoolBook again.

I hope this will delight our 100 second graders and their "thumbodies special."

Season of Lights - One "Upped"

I LOVE the glass blocks with the Christmas lights inserted into them and have found they are great, low-cost teacher gifts with high impact. My daughters' teachers still display them in their classes every year and the girls take so much pride in saying, "I gave that to Miss X when I was in her class 2 years ago." But this year I have the Cricut. Which means the blocks have to be taken up just a notch.

My husband is an avid Missouri fan. And if you are from the midwest, you know that MU does NOT mix with KU. We have the Borderline Showdown every year here in KC to prove who is top dog - "bragging rights". My husband's boss is one of those "detested KU people", as was my own grandmother. So for Christmas this year, he broke down and had me make his boss a KU lightbox. I found the ornament at WalMart. The jayhawk is actually a face tattoo. It had great adhesion and a transparency that most stickers do not have. The other KU letters are vinyl cut with the Cricut (plantin schoolbook text).

His boss loved it and has plans to incite other KU fans in the office against my DH!