Rounding Out the Cowboy Party Fun

These are the rest of the pictures from our Cowboy Party this Past weekend.

We had lots of fun activities including:

Panning for Gold

Hobby Horse Races ( I made 20 of these horses - they were the souvenirs for the kids to take home)

The kids roped and rode horses and cattle












We also had a photo booth where the kids could use disguises I put on sticks and props from the local thrift shop and dollar stores.

There was a great train chase jello eating contest (I used a William Sonoma train cake pan and the kids had to gobble up the trains before the law arrived)

What party could be complete without table decorations, a birthday banner and lots and lots of food?

Birthday Banner I made with my Cricut (the gorgeous lady is my Mother-In-Law who made the fantastic cake being cut)

I decorated the water bottles by making Belly Bands with My Cricut and Big Shot

The adults used mason jars for drinking the rootbeer and lemondae. I put striped straws with little pennants that said "Let's Party" in each one.

In addition to his amazing 3 tier cake, Reid had this super cool personal cowboy cake all to himself to eat. My Mother-In-Law made this one too!

I made the following fun treats to eat:

Personal Star Shaped Apple Pies

Smores on  a Stick

Chocolate Cacti (pretzels covered with green chocolate and coconut)

Chocolate dipped rice krispie treats shaped like stars, hats, and cowboy boots

Veggies with dips in indiviual containers (I love the sentiment on top - Every cowboy needs a little Ranch!)

Chips served in clear cups with coordinating cupcake liners on the inside.I also made the stand from various dollar store finds and some cowboy themed scrapbooking paper.

I also made fun place settings for each child at the table - with a wanted poster coloring sheet, gingham plates, cut paper bags for placemats, jean pocket silverware holders, and cow spotted cups. I couldn't find cups like this for a decent price so I just colored them with a Sharpie Marker myself.

The party was a bunch of work, but so worth it!! This little cowgirl needs a vacation from the ranch :)

Thanks for stopping by,

CarrieAnne

Cowboy High Chair Banner

Cowboy High Chair Banner

As promised this week I am going to share some of the photos of projects I made for my son's first birthday party we held on Saturday. The theme was a cowboy party so of course I have to share a picture of my favorite little cowboy in his birthday getup. You can bet this photo is going to be scrapped as soon as I can get my hands on October Afternoon's new Sarsaparilla vintage cowboy themed release.

I've never like the idea of having a lit candle near a baby so when I saw a high chair birthday banner in a specialty boutique I thought it was a great alternative to having a number "1" candle on a cake. I knew I could easily make one with my  Cricut for a fraction of what the boutique was charging. I used the Jute as string to tie the pieces together and I thought it enhanced the overall western theme.

Reid's cowboy outfit was a colloboration between my mom (who made the vest, chaps and cowboy belt) and my mother-in-law (who crocheted the cowboy booties with spurs). Of course Reid's natural cuteness was critical in the equation, but I could just be biased.

Recipe:
Cricut Cartridges: A Child's Year, Old West, Country Life, A Mother's Day Bouquet
 Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug: Perfectly Paisley
Patterned Paper: K & Company
Ink: Memento: Rich Cocoa
Adhesive: Beacon Adhesive, Stampin' UP! Dimensionals
Tools: Crop-O-Dile
Jute: Michaels
Pearls: Recollections


Cuts:
Pennant: 
The "Wheat" cut from the Country Life cartridge with the shift key and "Banner" function selected cut at 8 inches

Lassoing Cowboy Silhouette:
The "DressUp" cut from A Child's Year cut at 3 inches

Hobby Horse Cowboy Silhouette
The "StckHrse" cut from A Child's Year cut at 3 inches

The Sherrif's badge in the middle is a combination of several cuts:
The badge is cut at 5.25 inches using the number "7" cut on the Old West cartridge with the Icon function selected.

The star is cut at 4.75 inches using the number "6" cut on the Old West cartridge with the Icon function selected.

The ivory circle is cut at 5.25 inches using the "circle" cut from the A Mother's Day Bouquet cartridge.

The rosette was created by cutting and adhering together two scalloped circles cut at 2.5 inches from the "Flower14" cut from the A Mother's Day Bouquet cartridge.

Thanks for stopping by,

CarrieAnne

Cowboy Up

This week I am knee deep in preparation for my son's 1st Birthday party on Saturday. I've been making banners, hobby horses, cupcake wrappers and place settings galore. I promise to share lots of photos with you next week. Until than I better hit the trails and get busy the round up's in two days and there's lots left to do!

Thanks for stopping by,

CarrieAnne

Milk Bottle Birthday Treat with Cricut Craft Room

Cricut Craft Room Milk Bottle Birthday Treat

 Have you played with the new Cricut Craft Room yet?  I requested a login to be a Beta Tester and I LOVE IT!!!!

It's great that I can search for an image on any cartridge using a regular search engine function. I popped in "milk" and it gave me anything having to do with milk on every cartridge ever made. You can limit your search to Imagine Cartridges, Cricut Cartridges and other parameters.

The Craft Room welds whenever items touch instinctively (unless you set it not to) and manipulating images is SUPER easy. Every project saves in a file that preserves not only the cut sizes, but your cut settings as well.

Have I mentioned I LOVE this product yet - especially that it is completely FREE!!!

Milk Bottle Treat Side

I made this little milk bottle birthday treat by welding the milk bottle from Create a Critter together and putting a bone in at the bottom between bottles to create a piece to fold. The bottle is made from transparency and then I did chocolate layers, because the treat is one of those straws you place in white milk that turns it into chocolate milk when you suck it.

There is a bit of Epiphany Crafts goodness in the form of a round 14 epoxy and vintage setting as well.

Recipe
Cricut Cartridge: Create a Critter
Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug: Swiss Dots
Tools: Epiphany Crafts (Shape Studio Tool Round 14)
Epoxy: Epiphany Crafts (Bubblecap Round 14)
Setting: Epiphany Crafts (Vintage Settings: Tea Room)

Patterned Paper: October Afternoon
Stamp: Craft Secrets
Ink: Stampin' UP!
Pearl: Recollections
Cardstock: Stampin' UP!
Stickers: October Afternoon (pennant), Webster's Pages (alpha)
Ribbon: American Crafts
Border Punch: Stampin' UP!
Adhesive: Beacon Adhesive: ZipDry, Stampin' UP! (glue dots and dimensionals)

Milk Bottle Treat Back

Transparency: Office Max
Floss: DMC (pink)
Straw Treat: Got Milk?
Buttons: Stash.

Cuts

Milk Carton: 4.7 inches 
The "Milk" cut from Create a Critter - cut four times (twice from transparency, twice from brown cardstock)


Dog Bone (hinge between bottles on bottom): 1.7 inches
"Terrier" cut from Create a Critter with shift and Layer 3 selected

Learning to Bowl Mini Album

"Learning to Bowl" mini album made from Nifty Fifties Cartridge

I truly enjoy creating mini albums, and my Cricut Expression always me to make my albums in any shape or configuration I like. These pictures of taking my older two daughters bowling are several years old (we didn't even have the younger two yet!) It was their first time bowling and my husband was trying so hard to get them to use good fundamentals and all they wanted was to marvel over the "cool" two colored shoes they got to rent.

The idea of setting up this mini like a set of bowling pins has been kicking around in my mind for a while. When all the pages are closed the album looks like a fresh set of 10 pins just being set up. Some of the pages are on rings and some of them are on ribbon hinges so as you progress through the "steps" of bowling and more pins are "knocked" down you move through the album and see different pictures and journaling.

The entire album is based off a single bowling pin and ball cut from the nifty fifties cartridge. I cut the pin 10 times and removed the ball from each cut. I then set the pins up like a group of 10 and made a tracing of where each pin would go so that as I made moveable pages in groups of 3 or more pins they would all line up again at the end of the day. This pretty much ate up ALL my scrappy time this week, but I am happy with how it turned out so I included several pictures.

There are lots of Epiphany Crafts buttons, epoxys and findings on this and I love how I could use just a few papers and ribbons with Epiphany's tools to create a cohesive look.

 
Recipe

 Cricut Cartridge: Nifty Fifties
Patterned Paper: Glitz Designs, Pink Paislee
Tools: Epiphany Crafts (Shape Studio Tool Heart 14, Shape Studio Tool Round 14, Button Studio Tool Round 14, Shape Studio Accessories Bubble Caps Heart 14, Button Studio Tool Round20)
Epoxys: Epiphany Crafts (Shape Studio Round 14 Bubble Caps, Shape Studio Heart 14 Bubble Caps)
Buttons: Epiphany Crafts (Button Studio Round 14, Button Studio Buttons Round 20)
Settings: Epiphany Crafts (Vintage Settings - Club House)
Pearls: Want 2 Scrap
Adhesive: Beacon Adhesive (ZipDry), Stampin' UP! (Dimensionals, Glue Dots)
Alphabet Stickers: American Crafts (Black Canvas Thickers) Glitz Designs (Tiny Alpha - Burnt Orange)
Twine: The Twinery (Black and White)
Ribbon: May Arts (Red Pleated)
Pen: Copic (Mulitliner .01 Black)
Embellishments: Lil Davis (Bottle Cap), American Crafts (Chipboard Arrows, Heart), Die Cuts (Basic Grey)
Paint: Apple Barrel
Misc: Chipboard (Cereal Boxes), Jump Rings

Cuts
"Bowling" (with ball removed) on page 33 from the Nifty Fifties  cartridge cut at 6.5 inches.

Cricut Imagine Birthday Gift Card Holder

Cricut Imagine Birthday Gift Card Holder

  I know I've been AWOL, but I had an unexpected opportunity to take my two youngest to Disney last week and who wouldn't take advantage of that!  As you can see by this post's title, I am now the proud owner of a Cricut Imagine!! This is the first project I made with it right out of the box.

As I can't bear to throw any kind of reusable packaging away, I have quite a few of those plastic pillow boxes - the ones flowers or embossing folders come in, and I thought it would be fun to re-purpose one as a gift card holder. Because electronics and I mix like oil and water, I wanted to try something simple for my first Imagine print and cut job.

The doll die cut is from the Christmas Noel cartridge and the print of the doll's dress is from the Imagine Country Carnival cartridge.

One thing I REALLY like about my Imagine so far is the ability it gives you to create custom colors. This means you can fiddle with your pallette until it is perfect. I was delighted with the skin tone I was able to create for the doll as most cardstock is too pink or too white.
 
I provided pictures of the back of the container as well so you could see how it was assembled. The white cardtsock inside was simply traced and run through the Tim Holtz notebook embossing folder. I have always thought this folder liked like the slats of house siding and was glad to give it a try in creating this effect.

I cut the dress of the doll out twice and layered tulle into between the dresses to give the impression of the petticoat. I also added an Epiphany Crafts Round 14 button to the doll's bow.

This is going in my box of gifts that are ready to be given, now one of my girl's just needs to get invited to a Birthday Party!

Recipe

Cricut Cartridges: Christmas Noel
Imagine Cartridges: Country Carnival
Embossing Folder: Tim Holtz: Notebook
Tools: Epiphany Crafts: Button Studio Tool Round 14
Button: Epiphany Crafts: Button Studio Accessories Buttons Round 14
Stamp: Stamping Bella
Punches: Stampin' UP!, Marvy Uchida
Patterned Paper: Webster's Pages
Cardstock: Couture Cardstock
Flowers: Prima, Webster's Pages
Ink: Stampin' UP!, Tsukineko
Baker's Twine: The Twinery
Adhesive: Beacon Adhesive: Zip Dry
Misc.: Beads, Clothespin, Lace, Tulle

Cuts
"Doll" from the Christmas Noel Cartidge cut at 5.5" inches from Patterned Paper

"Doll" from the Christmas Noel Cartidge cut at 5.5" inches with the shift function selected from flesh tone, brown, turquoise, and patterned paper.

Patterns/Colors
Country Carnival: Green Floral
Country Carnival: Custom Flesh Tone

Thanks for stopping by,

CarrieAnne

Gumball Machine Treat Box

Gumball Machine Treat Box

Have you ever visualized a project and then had it work out exactly like you pictured? It is rare that this happens for me, but with this little Gumball Machine Treat Box it did. 

I love how cute it came out. I plan on putting this idea up on my shelf till Valentine's Day and making a bunch of them for my daughters' classes. They actually come together pretty easily. The final project height is 5.25 inches and it holds about 1/2 cup of gobstoppers.


Recipe
Cartridges: Cricut (Wrap It UP, Plantin Schoolbook, Cindy Loo)
Patterned Paper: We R Memory Keepers (Be My Valentine)
Ink: ColorBox
Adhesive: Beacon Adhesives (Zip Dry), Glue Dots, Stampin' UP! (Sticky Strip)
Buttons: Favorite Findings
Scissors: Fiskars
Twine: The Twinery (Pink and White)
Brad: Queen & Co.
Transparency: Staples
Tools: Paper Piercer, Needle
Candy: Wonka (Everlasting Gobstopper)

Cuts
The Clear Globe of the Gumball Machine
"Bag" cut on page 80 of Plantin SchoolBook cut at 6.25 inches with the "Tall Ball" function selected.
** Because you are cutting transparency you need to have your pressure set to max and your blade depth set to 6**

The Red Patterned Lid of the Gumball Machine
"Bag" cut on page 80 of Plantin SchoolBook cut at 6.25 inches with the "Tall Ball" function selected.
**Be sure to return your cut settings to normal to avoid tearing the paper**

The Base of the Gumball Machine
"FlwrPtBx" cut on page 75 of Cindy Loo cut 3.5 inches.

Face of Gumball Machine (Quarter Slot, Spinner, and Candy Ejection Point)
"Gumball" cut on page 44 of Wrap It Up cat at 5 inches with the "Tag" function selected.