Some More Disney, a Sketch & a Tutorial

First off, I would love to thank everyone who is following me and (hopefully) enjoying my ramblings. Please let your friends know about my site and please comment when you can, so I don't feel like the homeless lady in the park that talks to herself :) I will be announcing a contest soon... when I can get everything together for it :)

And now, to the fun part!

I wanted to share my favorite layouts I have done this week.
Remember that ad I posted a couple weeks ago? Well, I finally got my layout done using that ad.
On this layout, I used papers from K&Co. and Sandylion. The flowers are all from Prima, the bling is from Darcie, the bling brads are Making Memories, and the pearl swirls are ones I made (but bought the strands from JoAnn). The other swirls are ones that I cut with my cricut from DCWV Glitter Cardstock.

To make the pearl swirls, you will need to find a store that sells sewing notions (like JoAnn's) and look in their trims department. These ones I found were only $2.50 for 3 yards of them, and they had several colors. To get the pattern, I used the leftover pieces of cardstock from my other swirls as a stencil and then traced where I wanted the swirls with Helmar Craft Glue. After letting the glue settle for a couple minutes, I measured my pearls by holding them over where I wanted each piece and approximated how long I would need for each small strand. Then I layed each cut piece in the craft glue and let it dry. So easy and so much more economical than buying pre-made pearl swirls! As a pattern, you could also use a swirl stamp in a light color- I've done that before as well.

My 2nd favorite layout as of late is this one:

You can tell I stocked up on the Sandylion Disney papers... The brackets are from Echo Park, the "Smile" is from Cosmo Cricket's "The Boyfriend" line, The border stickers and alphas are from Sassafras, and the Pluto is a Jolee's sticker.

And lastly, the sketch. I don't have an example of this one this week, because it is one of my "backup" sketches... I would love to see your takes on it, though!

Post a link to your layouts in my "Comments" section :)

Let them eat cake!

This is an awseome giveaway! Melissa at Creating from the Heart is giving away, yes, I said GIVING AWAY, a Cricut Cake machine in honor of the anniversary of her blog and her son's upcoming birth (Congrats, by the way!) So, hop on over there and enter... I did!

Two posts in one hour... Wow! It's a record!

So, rather than just going in and editing my last post, I'm going to be a total blog whore at the moment.

I have, in the last two weeks, been having a ton of fun playing around with my Sure Cuts A Lot. For those of you who have no idea what I am referring to, it's that program that allows you to cut any font on your computer with your Cricut. I figured I would get it because my little cut buddy is over a year and a half old and has no warranty to speak of, so ProvoCraft's warning that it would void my warranty is of no consequence to me anyway.

Anyhow, I think I have used it on every layout I have done in the past week, after I got the hang of it. I think I may never have to buy another cartridge again.

For those who are still contemplating taking the plunge, let me just say, it is soooooo worth it!

In the interest of my new little obsession, however, I think that I will begin posting some links to fonts that I try that I really like, as well as warnings for ones that don't cut quite so well...

My first one... warning. Though it may look innocent enough, do not try to cut anything out of the Zombie Holocaust font. I used this one for a page on the World Record breaking Zombie Walk we participated in and it took an hour for my cut buddy to cut the words "Walking Dead". This is because (and I guess I didn't look carefully enough), this seemingly plain, innocent font has HUNDREDS of little, teeny, tiny dots on it, which my Cricut felt obliged to painstakingly recreate with its cutting blade. There are other fonts in the world that look just as snazzy as this one, and Cricut likes those much better. If you contemplate cutting this one out, my advice is DON'T DO IT! It may work with those little pens you can buy for it, though...