Some Cards I Made

Hello again! I cannot believe it is already September!  Summer seemed to really fly by this year.  Anyway, I thought I would describe a couple of cards I made in the past month.

The first is a card for a baby shower my mom was going to.  I used plain pink card stock for the card itself.  I found the adorable baby themed print paper at Hobby Lobby.  I cut the baby images using the Baby Steps cartridge and the Cricut Expression.  I used white gel pen to add detail to the cuts.  On the inside, I cut a few squares from leftover patterned paper for the corners.  I used the Cricut Classic Font cartridge and Baby Steps font for the text on the inside.  I used the Cricut Craft Room for all of it.

Originally, I wanted to make sort of baby block shapes for the cuts to sit on.  Unfortunately, the envelopes I have are just too small, and that idea wouldn't fit on the size card I can make.  I'm still okay with how it came out.

The next card I made was for my parents' 28th wedding anniversary.  I had the beige paper left from the baby card, because their anniversary was about a week after the shower.  I bought the patterned paper and the shimmery teal paper from Hobby Lobby.  I hope you can see how shiny and interesting the teal paper is.  I really like it.  I used the Pink Journey cartridge to cut the heart on my Cricut Expression.  I salvaged the flowers that were cut out of the heart to put on the inside of the card.  I again used the Baby Steps font to cut the sentiment for the inside.  I like how simple the card is.

These cards are almost a month old now.  I've been spending a lot of time lately working on the Storyland scrapbook I started a couple of months ago.  I think it's really coming along.  I'll be posting those pages soon.  Unfortunately, I also have an Epic Fail Craft to post.  I attempted to make a personalized wooden letter as part of the baby shower gift, and it was a disaster.  It was only my second or third attempt at Modge Podge, and it ended up in the trash.  That will be up soon.  Thanks for looking.  :)

Monster High Birthday Party Decorations

Hello.  I can't believe it's been over 2 weeks since I posted in this blog.  Where does the time go? Summer is almost over... the little guy starts school a week from Wednesday!  I have made a few cards recently that I plan on writing about but I am going to finish talking about my niece's birthday party (especially since it was almost a month ago!).

I made party decorations for my younger niece, and my nephew, so I wanted to make something for my older niece too.  My first little project was a bedazzled birthday candle.  It was really easy to make.  I got a birthday candle at Hobby Lobby for either $0.99 or $1.99, I can't remember now.  It was outlined in red, but I went over it with black permanent marker because that didn't fit the Monster High theme.  I also bought some hot pink and zebra print embellishments and glued them on.  I used regular craft glue, and surprisingly they stayed on.  I have E6000 glue, but it really scares me because it says right on it, "this product causes cancer, is extremely flammable, do not use inside" etc. etc.  I didn't want to use it on something that was going to be a) lit on fire and b) put in something we were going to eat! I also didn't want to use hot glue because I thought it would melt the candle wax.  I got lucky that the embellishments stayed attached.  I think it was a fun little thing that not everyone has at their birthday.  Here are a couple of pictures:

I made a banner that said "Lauren is 7!"  It was a last minute decision, and that message was shorter than "Happy 7th birthday Lauren!"  I used the Rock Princess Cricut cartridge and the Cricut Expression to make it.  I strung it together using pink yarn.  My mom had this from my failed attempt to learn to crochet.  I had wanted to make my younger niece a Minnie Mouse hat, but couldn't get the hang of it.  Anyway, I had a last minute idea to glue some of the leftover zebra print embellishments to the skulls in the banner as the center of the bows.  It was so last minute I tossed my glue in my beach bag with me, just in case.  I only had to glue 1 or 2 back on.  Here are some pictures:

Thanks for looking! 

Rock Princess Birthday Card

Hello.  It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted in my blog.  I blame the kickboxing classes I have been taking, because I haven't felt like writing after having class from 7-8, then having to shower and eat dinner.  Luckily my boyfriend cooks because it means I don't have to cook dinner along with all that!

Anyway, on the 18th my oldest niece (also my goddaughter) turned 7!  I cannot believe that happened, but it did.  If you know any young girls these days, chances are you know someone who is into Monster High.  I can think of at least 3 little girls I know who have had Monster High birthday parties in the past two years.  I knew I wanted to make her a card to fit that theme.

One of the first cartridges I bought when I got my Cricut was Rock Princess, because it has so many similarities to the Monster High line.  It's got hearts, and stars, and skulls, along with many other girly/creepy things.  I knew I would be able to use it a lot for the Monster High fans in my life. Here is the card I made with it:

Last year for Christmas, my boyfriend and I made a Monster High doll house for this same niece [emphasis on the my boyfriend.  It would have never happened without him.  But that is a story for another post].  The two patterned papers were left over from that project, as was the black glitter paper used for the eyes and noses of the skulls.  Actually, now that I think about it I think the hot pink card stock was from that project too.  The lighter pink embossed paper was left from the Nifty Fifties birthday card that never came to be.

Rather than trying to cut, wrangle, and glue itsy-bitsy sprinkles to the cupcake, I used the hearts from where the eyes were cut out.  "But Kelsey," you may say, "you have 6 small hearts and only 4 eye sockets. How can that be?"  Ahh, you see, I cut one of the skulls wrong, it overlapped where something else had already been cut out of white card stock and had to be cut again.  Nothing can ever be simple.

For the inside I used the Cricut Craft Room and the font from the Life's A Party Cartridge welded together to say "Happy Birthday Lauren!"  Short and sweet, in my opinion.

I made a couple of decorations for her party also, but I will get to those in my next post.  This was the first project I made using my new Cricut Expression.  I like how it came out.  Thanks for looking!

Craft Night

Hello there!  I got together with a few people for a craft night last week, and I thought I would share what I made there.  Last month, my boyfriend and I took his son to StoryLand, in New Hampshire.  My mom gave us the trip as a Mother's/Father's Day gift.  I don't have any vacation time this summer, so we pulled the boy out of 3 days of Pre-K.  I figured he wouldn't miss too much since it was the week before school ended.

So anyway, I'm making a scrapbook of our first little family vacation!  I only finished 2 pages during craft night.  I was helping my cousin, also one of my best friends, use the Cricut for her first time to make a baby shower card.  I was going to debut my new Cricut Expression, but I didn't notice the blade wasn't in it so I lugged it over to my mother's for nothing.  Typical me.

In April, I went to Cape Cod on a girls' trip.  I found a scrapbooking kit filled with woodsy papers, cardboard embellishments, and stickers at the Christmas Tree Shop there.  It was only $7, so I bought it 2 months in advance of our trip.  I remembered going to StoryLand as a kid and I knew the theme would fit well for the scrapbook I wanted to make.  I went to the website on the package, but I wasn't able to find it on there.  Here is a picture of all that was included:

The first page I made uses 1 of the cardboard embellishments from the kit, the deer.  The "cherish the moment" sentiment is a sticker from the kit.  I put it on a couple of layers of card stock to make it stand out more.  The paper is from the kit also.  I used white card stock as a mat for the pictures.  You can't really see the photos so well from the picture but I used a photo of the outside sign, one of the inside sign, and a photo of the little guy with a sign that reads "You are now entering a storybook world. Follow this path and it will lead you well." signed Mother Goose.

The second page isn't meant to go with the first.  I have almost 150 pictures from this vacation, so I'm making the pages as I come up with layouts for them.  I'm not doing it in order.  These pictures are all from the first real ride we went on, called Whirling Whales.  He loved it and just giggled the entire time.  You can see in the photo on the bottom left that he's giggling, but unfortunately the photo is blurry because the ride was moving.  I used stickers from that scrapbook kit to spell out the name of the ride.  I used lavender card stock as the mats because I thought it brings out the purple from the whales on the ride.  I could not find whale stickers anywhere, so I cut out 6 little ones using the Cricut Electronic Cutting Machine and the B is for Boy Lite cartridge.  I cut the first layer with the same lavender as the mats but colored them with a blue colored pencil where the water is coming out of the blowholes.  They're supposed to look kind of like they are whirling.  I was nervous cutting something so small, but I'm happy with how they came out.  I used white colored pencil to make the whales' eyes, but I might go back in with white gel pen to make it pop more.

As I have been learning for the past 3+ years, doing anything with an Autistic child is rarely simple.  We were a little nervous about taking our first trip.  It involved a 7 hour drive up to New Hampshire from Rhode Island.  (It should have been about 4.5 hours but our GPS led us an hour in the wrong direction.)  It involved staying in a motel, obviously a strange place for him.  And it involved a busy, noisy place with lots of stimulation.  I'm happy to say he did great!  That's the main reason I want to record the memories in this scrapbook.  It couldn't have gone much better and I want to preserve these happy memories.  I'll continue to post the pages as I make them.  :)

Birthday Cake Card

Hello! It's been a little while since I posted a new entry.  I meant to write a couple of days ago but I've had a small stomach bug.  I am feeling better now.  :)

July 1st was my mom's best friend's birthday.  As I am a craptastic crafter, I've been using every occasion to practice my skills.  (I got my Cricut in January and didn't have a successful project until June. Which I did not photograph.  So craptastic.)  So, I made her a birthday card using my Cricut Personal Cutting Machine and the Simply Charmed cartridge.

I had originally planned on using the bowl of strawberries from the cartridge saying something like, "have a berry sweet birthday."  I just think the strawberries are so cute!  But my mom's best friend has a notorious sweet tooth, so I decided to go with what is near and dear to her heart, and use the birthday cake.  I also cut the "happy birthday" phrase from Simply Charmed.  I already had the pink embossed paper from Michael's.  I planned on using it for a poodle skirt for a birthday party, but got the date wrong and didn't have time to make it. (A very craptastic move indeed!) I used a pink ballpoint pen to add detail.  I especially love how it looks on the yellow cake.  I used a Sharpie pen to go over the small faces in the "happy birthday."  Here is an image of the front:

For the inside, I used the Cricut Classic Font in the Cricut Craft Room on my computer to make the word "now."  I then added it to the phrase "cut the cake" from the Simply Charmed cartridge.  As I've said before, I really, really love this cartridge.  Take a look at the inside:

I'm pretty happy with how this card came out.  I browse a lot of Cricut projects on Pinterest and the Cricut.com forums, and I've noticed they almost always use embossed paper.  This was my first time using it, and I think it adds to the project.  It feels like I'm heading in the right direction.  Maybe some day I'll get a Cuttlebug, so I can just emboss paper on my own instead of having go out to buy it every time.  We'll see...

I'm very excited because I just expanded my Cricut collection!  I won a pink Cricut Expression on eBay!  It came with 3 new cartridges (Pink Journey, Plantin Schoolbook, and Accent Essentials) and a 12x12 cutting mat.  I'm not sure these cartridges are ones I would have bought on my own, but I ended up getting such a good deal.  I won this whole bundle for only $55!  The package came in today, and I'm very excited to play with it.  I'm having a Craft Night with my mom and a couple of friends this Friday, and it will probably make its debut then.  I'll have to share whatever project I make that night. :)

End of the Year Teacher Gifts

Last week, our big boy finished pre-K!  Well, for the time being anyway.  He is on the Autism spectrum, so he goes to our city's extended school year program.  He'll get two weeks off now, then go to school half days for a month, then another two weeks off, then he will start kindergarten!  It makes it much easier on all of us if he can keep a routine.  A whole summer break would make starting the next school year really tough for him.

Anyway, he has had the same teacher and teacher's assistants in his classroom for the last 3 years.  He's moving on to another classroom next year so I wanted to do something special for them.  It can't be easy getting him to do things he doesn't want to do 5 days a week!  Therefore, I put together little gift baskets for them.  I unexpectedly had his last day of school off, so I got to deliver them.  It was a nice surprise.  As I mentioned in my first post, I didn't take a picture of the final product.  Oops.  I'll do my best to make do without it.

A couple of months ago, I went to a craft fair with my best friend.  When I was there, I spotted some notecard holders.  They came with those pens that have fake flowers or fruit on the top.  I've never been a fan of those pens; I find them much too heavy to use regularly.  Anyway, I quickly realized I could easily duplicate the notecard holders at a much cheaper cost.  They were just cheap acrylic photo frames laid down with the front facing up and decorated.  Here's a picture of the original:

I went out that same afternoon and got the supplies.  From AC Moore, I got acrylic photo frames for $1/each.  I also got some scrapbook paper I liked for the background.  Stickers were on sale 2/$1 so I picked up a few school themed packages.  I knew I was going to use my Cricut to make some bigger school themed decorations, so I also bought Glue Dots so they would be 3D.  Here are some shots of them:

One of them had a pencil and pencil stickers. I wrote "You've got the WRITE stuff!" on the first note.

Then there was the scissors one, which is decorated with apple stickers.  I wrote "You're a CUT above!" on that one.

Then there was the glue version.  Sigh.  I could not, for the life of me, come up with any clever sayings using the words glue, or stick, or anything!  So I just wrote, "Thanks for all you do!" and decorated it with star stickers.

I used my Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter to cut the scissors, glue, and pencil.  The images are from the Simply Charmed cartridge.  It is easily one of my favorite cartridges!  I love almost every image in it!  They are all so cute with their smiley faces and rosy cheeks!

So, my step-by-step process was this:  First, I cut the plaid paper to the size of the frames.  I cut out triangles from the same paper and glued them with the plain side up to hold the note pads in place.  Next I cut the dies with my Cricut and used the Glue Dots to put them in place.  I added the stickers and the notes, and voila! The first items for the teachers were complete!

That's right, I said first items.  I didn't stop there.  I went to Dollar Tree and bought small apple-cinnamon scented candles.  I also bought 3 red baskets to put everything in.  Here are links to them:  candle / basket

My next stop was the Christmas Tree Shop.  I'm so glad I live in an area that has them!  I love it!  So does my mom.  So does my best friend.  My boyfriend doesn't even mind it!  I picked up some apple scented hand soap there.  Picking up on the theme of these gifts yet?  I also got some red drink tumblers with straws for cold summer beverages.  I couldn't get any pictures of those.

My final addition to the basket was a bit more daunting.  I picked up some 4x6 magnetic photo frames at the Christmas Tree Shop for $0.89 each.  I cut some white card stock to size and prepared the little artiste!  I used a foam brush to paint red Crayola Washable Paint on the boy's hand and pressed it onto the card stock.  He's not a big fan of arts and craft projects so I held my breath for this part!  But he did great!  He hates doing arts and crafts, but he loves showing them off when he's done!  I added stems and leaves with Bic Mark It permanent markers and we had some awesome handprint apples! Here they are:

(I made 3, but wanted to show the frames I used for them also.  I just love them!)

I recently painstakingly taught him how to write his name one letter at a time, so he was able to write that on the back for them.  I think that made them even more special.  His teacher loved them; she couldn't believe I got such clear prints.  I think the key was that I applied the paint with a brush, rather than dipping his hand in the paint.

Here's a link to my inspiration for the prints:

Mommy Minutes

So those were my teacher gifts!  I am so, so happy with how they ended up.  And this was my first actual crafting post, and my first time adding pictures!  Thanks for looking!

Hello

Hi!  My name is Kelsey.

This is my first blog entry.  I'm not sure how one starts a blog.  I think I'll start by saying why I'm writing this blog in the first place.  I want to be craftier.  With the invasion of Pinterest in my life, I have been inspired to try new projects.

I'm hoping to use this blog to describe my adventures (and inevitable misadventures, I'm sure!).  I've chosen the name "Craptastic Crafter" because I don't think I'll ever be one of those amazing bloggers I see out there!  I also don't have a ton of money to spend on my various crafting hobbies, so I make do with what I can.  Further, I don't have the mindset of a crafter yet!  For example, I just finished making some teacher gifts, and forgot to take pictures of the final product.  Oh well.  I'll get there, I hope!

Since this is my first entry, I'll tell you a little more about myself.  I am 26 years old.  I am the only girl in my family and I have 5 brothers.  I have a great boyfriend, and I'm lucky to be helping him raise his 5 year old son.  He is an amazing little boy.  Everyone who meets him falls in love with his contagious smile and he loves to make people laugh.  We have him from Saturday or Sunday through Wednesday every week, and then he goes to his mother's house.  We all do our best to make the arrangement work.

I work as a nanny watching my niece and nephew while my brother and sister-in-law work.  I went to college for financial counseling, but wasn't happy in the field. My brother and sister-in-law couldn't find a day care they liked, so I left my job at the end of my SIL's maternity leave in January 2010.  My nephew was born in March 2012.  It's not always easy watching two kiddos under 3 years old, but I am so lucky to have the connection I have with each of them.  I also have a 6 year old niece from my oldest brother, who also happens to be my goddaughter.  I, for one, cannot believe she will be 7 this summer!

The kids in my life inspire a lot of the crafts I have made and want to make.  My boyfriend also has 2 nieces.  I love the idea of being able to make personal gifts for them, such as paper dolls or homemade doll clothes.  When I was little I loved my paper doll collection, and I loved all of the doll clothes my mother made for my Barbies or American Girl dolls.  The kiddos are the main reason I want to become a better crafter!