One Crafty Birthday Celebration

Yesterday was my birthday.  I LOVE my birthday!  I'm like a kid when it comes to my birthday!  I celebrated this year by going to a painting class with some friends.  We went to a local Painting With a Twist studio.  This is one of the teach you how to make a painting places, where the teacher takes you step by step through the painting process, and you supply the food, drinks, and fun.  Here is my final product:

I keep looking at it in amazement!  I am so proud of it.  Of course, it's not perfect, and I have to stop myself from thinking "I should have painted this like that" or "I messed up right there".  But all in all, I think it's quite nice.  Now I just have to get it framed and figure out where to hang it.

I also made my birthday cake.  My husband offered to buy one for me, but I have been in a baking mood for a few weeks, and I finally got to scratch that baking itch.  Here is the cake I made, with the surprise inside:

This was my first attempt to make a checkerboard cake and I think it turned out great (although next time I'll try harder to get the squares straight)!  It was such a fun surprise for everyone!

I also made some "Thank You" goodies for everyone.  I made the milk cartons using the Cricut Tags, Bags, Boxes and More 2 cartridge.  I heat embossed the sentiment, which is a Stampin' Up! stamp.  The cartons were filled with purple and white M&M's.

To further scratch my baking itch, I also made these mini cupcakes.  I took some to my office, and my husband took some to his.  The only way I can bake around here is if I can give most of it away so we don't eat it all!  I think all this baking and decorating should hold me for a while.

I ended my birthday celebration by having a wonderful seafood dinner with my husband and son.  My birthday was fabulous, and I wouldn't change a thing!

Thanks for visiting!  Please come again!

Have a Christmas Stamp? Make a Sympathy Card!

Uh, what?  I know, I know.  Crazy title, right?  Well, that's exactly what I did -- I made a sympathy card using a Christmas stamp.  I thought the image would be perfect, and it was.

The husband of my son's first teacher at his day care center recently lost his long battle with cancer.  This particular teacher was very fond of my son and is an all-around wonderful lady.  Even though my son has been out of her class for over two years now, I felt that I needed to send her something to show our sympathy and support.

I also decided to make this card for the Cricut Circle Magazine's monthly challenge.  The February challenge was a sketch challenge: 

"We are so excited about our challenge this month! Sketches are all the rage and there are so many to choose from, especially in the Circle Magazine and on the Circle Blog. To celebrate all of our designer’s sketching ability, we want to give you the opportunity to choose a sketch and create a project with it. You can use any of the sketches from the Cricut Circle Magazine or on the Cricut Circle Blog to create a card, layout, decor item… whatever you are inspired to make." 

I used this sketch from a post on the Cricut Circle Blog way back on December 10, 2010.  It was designed by Jana Eubank.

So with my sketch in hand and my game plan in mind, I set to work, resulting in a complete and utter failure.  The colors weren't right, the sizing was off, I didn't like the images I chose -- it just didn't work.  So I scrapped it and went to bed.  The next day I played with the design using my Gypsy and rethought my color choices.  I ran to Michael's to find the right ribbon and crossed my fingers.  Success!

The background paper is a shimmery steel gray color.  I used silver embossing powder for the image.  The stamp is a Christmas stamp from Stampin' Up!  I used masking tape to block the Christmas sentiment when stamping.  The paper and the image have a very nice sheen to them.  It was hard to capture the shine in a picture, but you can get an idea of it from this image:

I was afraid the gray and the black in the ribbon would be too dark, especially for a sympathy card, but it turned out beautifully!  (I should really work on my photography skills so you can get a true sense of the colors of the card...)  The white center shape is the eyelet shape from the Elegant Edges Cricut cartridge.  I stretched its size with my Gypsy so that it is approximately 4 inches tall and 6 inches wide.  I left the inside of the card blank and wrote a note from our family to the teacher's family.

This card was nothing like I had originally envisioned.  I didn't put the planned sentiment on the front.  The colors of the paper and the image embossing are different than what I first tried.  And where did that bow come from?!  But in the end, I am very proud of this card and I believe that the teacher will appreciate it.

Thank you for visiting, and please come back again!