Elmo Birthday

We are HOME! Vacation was absolutely wonderful, but it sure is good to be home! My own bed, my own recliner, and my own FAST internet!

I wanted to share one more photo from our trip. We had dinner Friday night at Branson Landing's White River Fish House which is actually out on Lake Taneycomo. This is the Lake Queen that went by while we were waiting for our dinner. I think we'll have to take a lake cruise on our next trip.


OK, back to Cricuiting.

You might remember that Maddy's birthday party theme was Elmo. In case you missed it, here's the link to her Elmo card. We had Elmo plates, napkins, cupcakes, hats, games, pinata,...

With all of the photos I took, I had to have some great Elmo embellishments to scrapbook them. (With Kay so busy with the party stuff, I kind of become the photographer of the parties.)

I wanted the first page to be the title page, Maddy is 2. Very original, huh? Sesame Street Font has a SS character attached to each letter of the alphabet. These are TOO cute! I was fortunate that most of Maddy's letters were Elmo. But what to do for the Y? Then I remembered the foundation keys. Sure enough, there was Elmo holding a chalkboard. So I just took that and added a Y to it.


I liked the idea of the 2 being inside of a shape, but then I had the problem with shadowing it. Since the shape is a character key, there is no shadow for it. However, there's those foundation keys again. Yep, I found a silhouette rectangle shadow that I could adjust for the rectangle and weld a shadow of the 2.


Then I decided that the 2 just didn't stand out enough. I finally discovered that the Sunny Day characters fit those in the shapes, so I used it to cut just the 2 in red so that it covered the white 2.


Once I selected red as my background paper, the black base of the characters just didn't give it enough pop. That's when I decided that they needed a white shadow.


Although you probably won't be wanting a file for Maddy, I'm including the file so that you can click around on it and see what I used for different things. As usual, some of the pages are for previewing. The pages that would be cut for this are labeled Cut... I have a ? on Shadow and 2 because you may or may not want a shadow or another layer for your number.

If you do use this file, you will want to hide the noses before cutting page 1 and the eyes before cutting page 2.

Elmo Title Page

More to come.

Have fun,
Jill

Bumble Bee

A while back, Scootingranny sent me a message on the Cricut message board asking if I would reshare a bumble bee I had made using Plantin Schoolbook and Base Camp. Unfortunately, I'm not on the message board much lately. I hope she can still use it or maybe someone here can.

It is patterned after the bee on Pooh and Friends. I had never cut it when I shared it on the message board, so I just cut it to make sure it works. I just grabbed a couple of colors to test. Not exactly bee colors.


Hope someone can make use of this bumble bee.

Jill

Awards Continued

Yes, I got a little sidetracked.

The next award was the Honest Scrap Award. I received this from Amanda at Cricuit Creations by amkscrap. If it weren't for Amanda, I'm not so sure that I would have a blog for you to be reading. She patiently answered each and every question I could come up with for blogging. And she is sweet enough to share her account so that I am able to share files with you. Not to mention her talent! If you haven't already done so, please go visit Amanda's blog.


The rules are to state 10 honest things about oneself and then pass this on to 7 other bloggers. Here goes:

1) I love strawberries. (I thought of that because I just ate a chocolate covered one. Yum!)
2) I'm a wimp in the heat. (However, I think it's the humidity that kills me.)
3) I am not a good passenger in the car and would rather drive.
4) I don't like to fly since 9/11.
5) I need to scrapbook more.
6) I enjoy creating things for others.
7) I love pink. OK, you knew that, didn't you.
8) I was blessed with amazing parents.
9) I spend entirely too much time on the computer.
10) I appreciate all of you for reading my blog.

OK, that part is done. I'm afraid you'll have to wait to see where I send these awards.


Then came the One Lovely Blog Award from Tina at Tiggers Scrap Place. I had not visited Tina's blog prior to being honored with this award, but I can guarantee that I will be a regular from now on. I think you will agree when you visit Tina's blog.


Here are the rules:
1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.
2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.


And last, but by no means least, I received the I Truly Appreciate Your Blog Support Award. This award came from Susan at Busy with the Cricky. Another lady with amazing talent. I don't know how she keeps coming up with such beautiful cards and projects. Please go visit Susan's blog too.


This must be passed on to five blogs that I find inspiring.

When I get home where I'm able to blog hop a bit faster, I'll pass these awards along and let you know who is receiving them so that you can check out those blogs too.

Thank you SO much to Diane, Amanda, Tina and Susan for these awards. I apologize for not acknowledging them sooner. I appreciate all of you so much.

Thanks everyone,
Jill

Class Sign

I recently read that someone made a big poster with the year and grade for their child to hold for first day of school pictures. Sure wish I had thought of that all those years ago. A few weeks ago, I was going through all of my photos from Matt growing up and thought how nice it would be to know what year all of those were. I'll sit down one of these days to do a better job of sorting them and figure it out, but it would be so much easier if I had a clue.

I was too late to help Claire with Logan's pictures, but thought I could at least help Amy. Instead of a poster, I made a cut out with the year and a K for Kindergarten. Who knows, maybe I'll manage to be a good aunt and remember to do this each year. It could happen.


Of course, I had to do Bella's in pink with a purple shadow. Should Amy decide to start scrapbooking, she also has the perfect beginnings to a title page. I used Base Camp on mine, but you can use whatever font you want.

Here's the cut file for the Kindergarten 2009 sign.


Here's a little taste of our vacation. This is Table Rock Lake and Dam. My dad helped build the gates on this dam. That's why we lived in Branson when I was 9 months old. Every trip to Branson includes a stop by the dam. My friend Kay's dad also worked on this dam. They had already left Branson by the time we came though. Yes, it is a small, small world.

Jill

School Days

You may remember that my friend and co-worker, Claire, got married back in May? When she married Chris, she got a precious step-son in the bargain. Logan started Kindergarten last week.

Bella, the granddaughter of one of my double cousins, and her mom came for a visit last week. Bella starts Kindergarten next week.

Since I don't have grandkids of my own, I decided that Logan and Bella needed something for their new adventures. And we all know that I love making luggage tags.


I started with Locker Talk and selected the school bus and crayon. After looking at all of the apples available, I decided that I liked the one on My World best for this project.


Next was the colors. I knew that I wanted to go with primary colors for the school bus and apple, but what about the crayon. I found out that Logan's favorite color is red and confirmed that Bella's are pink and purple. Sorry for the glare below; it was that or blurry.


As usual, I was doing everything at the last minute. Logan's was so last minute that I didn't have a chance to take pictures of his. Of course, his crayon was red, so all of his tags were in red, green, yellow, blue and black. Being a boy, I figured that he most definitely would NOT want ribbons on his.

I had a little extra time with Bella's and got them done after she and Gram went to bed for their sleepover. I wish I had some of that child's energy.


Each item has it's own tab. I didn't try putting everything on one cut tab. With all of the pieces, it was easier for me to work with each item on its own. The School Bus sign has its very own page because I used my Cricut markers on this one so that the letters would show better. They're a bit blurry, but you get the general idea. I think the gel pens that Diane has been working with would have been better, but I don't have those yet. If you don't have the markers, you can just use a pen or chalk or leave as is.

I started the project using one font for the names but changed when I found Printing 101 on sale at Wal Mart. I doubt you'll need these names, but I left those tabs anyway. You can use whatever font you want for your names.

Due to a glitch in the calendar, Logan didn't have his until the second day of school. Claire said he was so excited about his tags that she couldn't get him out of the car that morning. It seems that his PreK teacher was helping him out and Logan was telling him about the tags instead of getting out.

I think Bella was excited. She gets pretty quiet when I give her things, but Gram said that she was telling her mom all about them later.


I think these would be great for anyone in the younger grades or elementary teachers. Locker Talk has some other items that would be better for higher grades. Hope you find a use for them.

So far, another beautiful day in Branson. I think we're going out to the dam in just a bit.

Oh, guess I better include the cut file.

Have fun,
Jill

Awards

Greetings from Branson, Missouri! We are on vacation and loving every minute of it. The weather is absolutely beautiful and the temps are awesome. We went for a late lunch at IHOP this morning and it was 64 degrees! Our condo is below ground level in the front, so I decided earlier to go blog hop on the balcony and enjoy the lovely scenery out back. Ha, no internet connection out there. So I sat out there and read my book for a little while. Other than the singing neighbor, it was GREAT! Not even a bug to swat away.

I hope you haven't given up on me yet. I've been creating, just not making the time to post. Plans are to do some catching up this week and let you see some of my recent projects. I think you're really going to like some of them.

First on my agenda is to acknowledge some blog awards that I have "recently" received from some awesome bloggers.


The first was the Kreative Blogger Award from Dianne at Capadia Designs. If you have been following my blog for long, you know that I think she is awesome. And if you haven't already done so, go check out her blog.

Diane's post said that I share a few things about myself and pass the award along to seven other bloggers. Let's see if I can come up with 7 things:

1) I am an only child and have an only child.
2) I attended the same school all 12 years (no kindergarten back then).
3) I completed college in 3 years.
4) I was a high school business teacher.
5) My mother's brother married my dad's sister and I have 2 double cousins.
6) I have always lived in Arkansas except for 9 months that we lived in Branson when I was 9-18 months old.
7) I am married to the most wonderful man.

OK, I started on this in the afternoon. It is now 10:36 p.m. and I'm beat. We went to an Owners Party which was a buffet dinner and previews of lots of shows around town. After coming back to the condo, we decided to go see Harry Potter The Half-Blood Prince. Not sure what we'll end up doing tomorrow.

I'll try to get a project posted tomorrow and then continue with the awards. I feel honored to have received these and already feel bad that it has taken me so long to acknowledge them.

See you then,
Jill