I have two posts today...

NOT ready for Monday this week, folks!  Can I pretend it's still the weekend?  I spent 10 hours yesterday driving Son#1 to orchestra camp for a week and I'm wiped.  And today unfortunately is school registration at the middle school for the other two…long lines and many forms await!  And then there is that pesky work thing later this week...I'm bucking up with enormous amounts of diet Coke!  I have two crafty posts for you today.  Just below is my Christmas card for the Christmas in July blog hop for Exploring Cricut.  Scroll down one post for my BEE post for BBTB2 with Pooh and Friends.  Hope you have a great week!

Xmas in July (for Exploring Cricut)

It's a Christmas in July blog hop for Exploring Cricut today…so give White Christmas (the Bing Crosby version) a hum, think chilly, and look at some Christmas cards!  I know it's probably over 90 degrees outside-maybe our blog hop will make you FEEL cooler!  The blog hop list is at the bottom, so you can see all the fabulous Christmas projects from the design team.

My card uses Joys of the Seasons for my snowy trees.  I used white glitter paper for the snowy tops, but it didn't really show up in the photo very well.  I embossed the white background with the all purpose Swiss dots and stamped my Christmas sentiment at the bottom.  It feels so good to get a few Christmas cards done early!!!

Cricut:
Joys of the Season-trees
Paper-from the scrap bin….no idea!
Stamps-from an old Ali Edwards set

Blog Hop Schedule

Annette   www.mymindsdustbunnies.blogspot.com

Sharon    www.meemeescreations.blogspot.com

Faith        www.thecraftingprofessor.blogspot.com

Donna     www.wwwkindredreations.blogspot.com

Rae Ann   www.joyinart.blogspot.com

Emily       www.emilyqueenofallthingscrafty.blogspot.com

Michelle N  www.justanutterpapercrafter.blogspot.com

Christi      www.tidbitsoftexas.com

Liz             www.unikbyyes.blogspot.com

Tina          www.thescrappinrabbit.blogspot.com

Katrina    www.scrappyhorses.blogspot.com

Michelle S www.cricutcrazyscrapper.blogspot.com you are HERE 

Diane      www.happyscrapperdiane.blogspot.com 

What's the buzz? layout (for BBTB2)

We have a bee challenge at BBTB2 this week…there are so many cricut bees to choose from that it took me a while to narrow it down which one to use!  Kind of like the owls last week-so hard to pick just one.  I settled on the bees and hive from the Pooh and Friends cartridge for my layout, which will have pictures of my teenagers with various school friends goofing around.  There is always an astounding amount of "buzz"with teens-high school appears to be a hotbed of gossip and drama!  Guess not much has changed in that regard since I was in high school.  My title font is from the Robotz cartridge and the Simple Stories print papers reminded me of a honeycomb.

Cricut:
Pooh and Friends-beehive, bee
Robotz-font
Paper-Simple Stories 24/7 collection prints, CTMH solids
brown chalk ink

So link up YOUR project at BBTB2 with us and check out all the DT bee-u-ti-ful projects!

Shedd Aquarium layout

I've got an aquarium layout for you today that I'm going to link to the Fantabulous Cricut Wet and Wild challenge this week.  We went to the Shedd aquarium in Chicago last summer and I took lots of cool fishy pictures that need a home!

The background paper is from the Colorbok Beach House collection and I layered different strips on the bottom (cut using a wave template I've had forever).  All the fish (including shark, octopus, crab) and coral are from the Life As A Beach cartridge.  I did add a teeny piece of black under the eyes of all the fish.  The title uses two different fonts- the big font is from Birthday Bash and the smaller font is the Lyrical Letters Jack Sprat.  The coral and seaweed are from Life As A Beach also.

Cricut:

Birthday Bash-big font

Lyrical Letters-small font

Life as a Beach-all fish and coral

Paper-BG print papers Colorbok Beach House, solids CTMH

brown chalk ink

I hope you guys are all having a relaxing weekend and getting some sunshine and fun!

It's a real hoot layout (for BBTB2)

Happy Monday!  I have to come back to the real world now that my vacation is over…but I had a great time!   If you haven't been to Rocky Mountain National Park and the town Estes Park, CO, put it on your bucket list-the area is unbelievably beautiful!  I did find time for some shopping, where I found an amazing little scrapbooking store tucked away in Estes Park with products for scrapping all the fun vacation activities in the area.  Let's just say I helped the local economy greatly in the scrapbooking store, LOL!  Here's a bit of what I did last week while exploring Rocky Mountain National Park:

 Me and my hubby at RMNP-it's so beautiful that it looks like a painting! 

 White water rafting on the Cache La Poudre river-wild times, I tell you!

Rocky Mountain High at almost 13,000 feet with the fam!

me and my youngest son hiking at RMNP-so much fun!

So, on to crafty pursuits:  Whooo's up for an owl challenge?   It's an owl challenge at BBTB2 this week, so I broke out my Hoot and Holler cartridge to make this layout a real hoot! (Sorry guys, couldn't resist the puns!)   I don't know about your family, but my kids take lots of random goofy pictures of us all with the iPhones when they are waiting for events.  I have a ton of wacky funny pics and this seemed like a perfect title/theme to scrap some of them.  I cut the title and all the various owls from Hoot and Holler.  The print papers are from the Echo Park Summer Bliss collection.

Cricut:
Hoot and Holler-all cuts
Paper/stickers-Echo Park Summer Bliss collection prints, CTMH solids
brown chalk ink

All the design team at BBTB2 have fabulous owl projects to share.  Go take a look-there are LOTS of cricut owls to choose from-apparently owls are very trendy!  Who knew?  Make a project and share over at BBTB2 with us! 

Tubing layout (for Exploring Cricut)

Here's my tubing layout for the daily project for Exploring Cricut, but it's a day late!  I was on vacation and forgot to set it to post while I was gone!!!!  Whoops!  So here's the details:  I used the CM Traveler cartridge for the font (it's called Road Trip) and the Fun in the Sun cartridge for the boat and tubing girl.  The awesome background paper paper is from the Carta Bella Beach Boardwalk collection.

Cricut:
Fun in the Sun:   boat and tubing girl
CM Traveler:  title font
Paper-Carta Bella Beach Boardwalk collection prints, CTMH solids
twine, brown chalk ink

I have two posts today….

Happy Monday!  It's happy for me because I'm on VACATION!!!!  When you read this, I am going to be on a jeep tour of Rocky Mountain National Park with the fam!  We are supposed to go up to 12,000feet-I'm planning to take lots of pictures of the view!  We are going white water rafting tomorrow, so IF I live to tell the tale, you'll see some pictures of that eventually.  But on to crafty pursuits…I have two posts today.  Just below is my Splash Zone layout for Exploring Cricut for some pool pictures.  Scroll down one post for my Totally Crazy layout for the BBTB2 dog challenge, using the Paisley cartridge.  Hope you have a great week!  

Splash Zone layout (for Exploring Cricut)

It's a wide-open challenge at Exploring Cricut this week-all you have to do is use 2 cricut cuts on your project, so it can be any theme or occasion you want!  I'm sticking to summertime fun since I have lots of pool pictures to get in the scrapbook!  I used the H2O cartridge for the water toys and goggles.  The water droplets are from the CM Traveler cartridge.  And the big chunky font is from the Robotz cartridge.  (I don't cut the robots very often, but I love the font!!!!)  I wanted this layout to be bright and fun, so I used lots of color.  The print papers are from Echo Park.

Cricut:
H2O-floatie, goggles, beach ball
CM Traveler-water droplets
Robotz-font
Paper-Echo Park Hello Summer collection prints, CTMH solids
brown chalk ink
square maker-cut in half for photo corners

I hope you will play along and link up your project with our challenge!  The design team has some great ideas to get you started at Exploring Cricut.

Totally Crazy layout (for BBTB2)

Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to use a dog on a project.  I made a fun layout for some crazy pictures of Son#2 and his friends goofing around before the school talent show, using the Paisley cartridge.  The dog with the hula hoop and the monkey doing a handstand sort of gave me that crazy and fun talent show vibe where anything goes and I added some stars since they all want to be a star like on American Idol!!  The "totally crazy" title is also from Paisley.  The pictures are super colorful, so I wanted kind of neutral photo mats-the layout looks much snazzier with the pics on it, but since some of the pics have children who are not mine in them, I didn't want to post the photo with the pics included.

Cricut:
Paisley-all cuts
Paper/Stickers-Echo Park It's a Boy collection bg papers, CTMH solids
brown and navy chalk ink

The DT has a whole pack of dog projects to get your ideas flowing, so check them out at BBTB2 and link up!

Don't flip out layout

I had this adorable flip flop paper in my stash from the Echo Park Paradise Beach collection and couldn't resist making a punny summer project!  The title actually says DON'T flip out (the don't is in small sticker letters from the collection, which you can see better if you click on the photo).  I cut my flip flops, sunglasses, and sunscreen from the Pack Your Bags cartridge.  The other accents are stickers from the paper pack.    I'm going to link this to the Craftin' Desert Divas summer themed linky party.

Cricut:
Pack Your Bags-sunscreen, flip flops, sunglasses
Plaintain Schoolbook-circles
Robotz-font
Paper/stickers-Echo Park Paradise Beach collection prints, CTMH solids
brown chalk ink

Rocky Mountain High road trip layout (for BBTB2 travel challenge)

It's a vacation travel challenge at BBTB2!  We are leaving next week to go to Estes Park Colorado to see Rocky Mountain National Park and do some hiking and white water rafting, so this was very timely!  I cannot wait to be on the road!  I'm sure I'll be taking a bazillion pictures of the mountain views (in fact, I've scheduled us for a jeep photography tour!), so I've made a layout using Pack Your Bags and Zooballoo.  I cut the mountains from Zooballoo at fit to page, which turned out to be 4 1/2 inches.  The car, camera, and compass are all from Pack Your Bags.

Edited to add:  My kids informed me that this title could be misconstrued with the Colorado legislation legalizing certain substances (which did not even occur to me)….so just to clarify, we are going high as in ELEVATION,  lol!

Cricut:

Pack Your Bags-car cut at 4 inches, compass cut at 3 inches, camera cut at 3 inches

Mickey Font-title cut at 1 inch

Paper/Stickers-Echo Park Summer Bliss collection prints, CTMH solids

Happy Trails layout

I made (another) layout for hiking pictures I plan to take on our upcoming vacation to Rocky Mountain National Park, using the Campin' Critters cartridge.  It is scrap lifted from a layout I saw on Pinterest, which I love to browse for inspiration (I will post a link to it, if I can find it again!).  I used a different outdoor scene and the sign to better fit my hiking in the mountains theme and changed the sizing around to work with 4x6 pics, which is mainly what I scrap in my albums because it is super easy to print 4x6 on my home printer.

Cricut:
Campin' Critters-all cuts
Paper-Bo Bunny prints from an old line that's been in my stash awhile, solids are CTMH
brown chalk ink

I'm linking this to the Fantabulous Cricut anything goes challenge this week.

Celebrate Freedom layout (for Exploring Cricut)

Happy 4th of July!  I get to share the daily project at Exploring Cricut today, and I have a layout for the 4th of July.   I used the Artbooking cartridge for all the cuts, including the rocket and stars.  The papers are from Hobby Lobby.  I am looking forward to seeing the fireworks tonight and plan to take some pictures for this layout!  I hope you all get to do something fun to celebrate the USA today!

Cricut:
Artbooking-all cuts
Paper-Hobby Lobby The Paper Studio prints, CTMH solids