Alive and Crafting!

My goodness - it's been over 3 months since I've posted!  Life just took me for quite a ride, but I'm back now and I hope to keep up with this blog a little better for the rest of the summer :)  The last 3 months have been filled with birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, work reorganizations, etc.  FORTUNATELY I was able to continue to make lots of goodies, UNFORTUNATELY I was unable to post most of them.  Here are some of the things that kept me busy:

1.) My daughter turned 3 in April, and we had 30+ kids (gulp) come to her party!  As favors, I made each of the kids a personalized water bottle:

I found these bottles at Michael's for $1 each!  I cut each of their names out in white vinyl using my Cricut, and added different colored spots to each to make each one unique.  They were a big hit, especially with the kids who have 'unique' spellings of their names!  This started my newly-found vinyl obsession!

2.) My niece Danielle turned 5 in April, and she loves the Littlest Pet Shop figurines.  I wanted to make her something to hang in her room:

I had to get really creative to make that little cat - I used the Create a Critter cartridge fror most of it, then substituted ovals for the eyes and used stickles to 'draw' in the eye features... Add a peachy Keen face and you have a Littlest Pet Shop!

She loved it :)

3.) My husband and I were watching the movie "Courageous" one night (Must See for ALL parents), and the little girl in the movie had a sign on her wall that said this:

My husband made the comment that he'd like to have that saying hung in our daughter's room, so I made a mental note and created the above.  I took an unfinished wood plaque from ACMoore, painted it, ModPodged it, and added the vinyl letters/designs to in, and finished it off with a little bling.  It matches the colors of our daughter's room perfectly - both daddy and daughter loved it.

4.) My final highlight of the past 3 months was this banner:

I never made a banner before, but I was in a swap where I needed to make something homemade, and the first item on my partner's list was a 'create' banner in lime green/black.  I love how it turned out!  I used my Ribbons & Rosettes cartridge for the first time, and while those little rosettes are a challenge to fold, they looked awesome!

I hope my partner is loving her new banner!

Ok - I have a couple of t-shirt ideas in my head, along with some more vinyl ideas, so hopefully you'll be seeing some of those from me soon.

In the meantime, I hope everyone in enjoying their summer!