Teacher Gifts 2011

This past Thursday was my kids' last day of school and I sent them off with little tokens of our appreciation for their great teachers. Seriously,we were really pushing it to the last day to get these to them. I guess because I could never really settle on something I really wanted to give them that was useful and cost effective. We're talkin' four teachers! I had some cute ideas, but I wanted to give something they would really use. So, hopefully they will use the acrylic tumblers I personalized using my Cricut.


I used pink vinyl and the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge......again! I use that cartridge for so many things because I love the simplicity of it. I personalized the tumblers, which came from Wal-Mart, and then added black and pink polka dots. No, I'm not trying to spell a weird word called HARB. This is just my picture of all the tumblers together. Trent has three teachers and Laci has one. When you put them together you get this!


I put some Hershey's Hugs in a cello bag and tied them with a cute polka dot ribbon and put each bag down into the tumbler. The gift bags had cute tags that say, Thanks for teaching! --"Hugs" Trent & Laci. Trent said his teachers said,"ooooh" and "awwwww, it's so ca-ute, Trent." That's my son. Always giving the animated version. Both kids said their teachers gave them big hugs and big thank you's. : )

Baby Girl Bucket

My daughter's teacher from last school year is due any day now with her baby girl. We wanted to give her a little gift to say congrats. She is a super sweet person and I absolutely LOVED her teaching style. It was so enjoyable to visit her class as I volunteered for different activities or parties. She will also be a great mom!

For this gift, I used a pink galvanized bucket similar to the ones I used for Easter, but this one I found in the gardening section at Target and it's just a bit bigger. I cut out her name in white vinyl using my Plantin Schoolbook cartridge for the Cricut. I like to use the "tall ball" option on the cartridge for names. After I applied the name, it needed just a little more pretty, so I tied three pieces of ribbon to one side of the handle. What's inside the bucket? ---A cute baby toy with different textures and colors and a baggie with hair accessories for baby. It has a couple cute hair bows, a big, brown gerbera daisy hair clip and some headbands. I hope mom and baby enjoy the gift!

Easter Buckets

These will be the kids' Easter buckets this year. I couldn't pass them up when I saw them in Target's Dollar Spot. They are galvanized buckets that are a bit smaller than an Easter basket, but they are a little bigger than the buckets they have had many times in the Dollar Spot. Great spring colors, too! We'll be using these for Easter treats and goodies, but not for hunting eggs. They will need a little more room for that. Good thing I have the other 25 baskets and buckets from past Easters out in our storage building......... Okay, maybe not 25, but close.

I used my Cricut to cut each of the kid's names and applied them to their buckets. Quick, simple and cute! Ivy will love the pink one since she is all about pink at the moment. Laci will love the green since she is so anti-pink right now. Trent, well, I don't think he cares one way or another as long as it has some goodies in it!

Bridal Shower Decor

Last week my sister and I hosted a bridal shower for a friend of ours. It almost became the "shower that got blown away." It was rainy, yucky and their were tornado warnings.The tornado siren actually went off in the middle of the shower,but what did we do? Ignored it and had us a shower.

For our decor we chose to go with a lime green and damask theme. We used lime green tablecloths and damask wrapping paper from Hobby Lobby as a runner. The food table was our main focal point. We would have liked to have hung lime green paper lanterns, but at our venue you could not hang anything from the ceiling. The centerpiece of the food table was the bride and groom's framed monogram that I gave some height by wrapping a box with white paper and tying a black ribbon around it. Two antique vases with carnations accented the table too.


For the framed monogram, I used my Cricut to cut out their initials and just applied them directly to the frame. The frame was matted with a piece of damask scrapbook paper and white card stock to make the monogram stand out.


I'm including our little labels for the dessert buffet as decor. I really like how they turned out. We just printed off all our menu items on white card stock, matted that with black card stock and then stamped this elegant design underneath. We used glue dots to adhere them to our serving pieces. More on that dessert buffet tomorrow! It was good stuff!



We used two small round side tables for accents that we covered with white sheets. Lime green tissue paper gave it a pop of green. We also set out some framed pictures of the bride and groom to be as well as their initial and more antique vases with carnations. Oh-I can't forget the framed saying my sister made which was kind of our theme-"Love is Sweet."


We tried to keep the cost down on the party favors by using these cute favor bags from the Dollar Tree. I've used these many times and they are great for embellishing. For these we added "A" stickers, which are actually envelope seals, from Hobby Lobby and accented them with lime green tissue paper. Since "love is sweet" we filled these with Hugs, Kisses and Lifesavers for the guests to take home. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, including the bride to be.She got SO many nice things, too! It was a sweet success!

Come back tomorrow for the dessert buffet menu and some recipes!

Mantel Makeover-Halloween Style!

I love it when it's time to pull out the Halloween and fall decorations. It's so much fun! So last week I started making over my mantel for Halloween, trying to use things I already had on hand. I'm happy to say that I only spent $8 and most of that was on candy for the apothecary jars! I like the way it turned out and what I like even more is that I didn't spend a lot of money!
My three little goblins also love our mantel makeover!


I used a black frame I had in my stash and simply cut out a black #31 with my Cricut and applied it to the glass. My $1 black crowe and $1 pumpkin from the Dollar Tree go great beside it!
The apothecary jars are my kids' favorite thing about our mantel. Everyday my 3 yr. old asks me if I'm done with the candy yet. Nope, not yet! I made these a while back and love to use different fillers for them. For our mantel I went with( $2)candy corn and ($4)chocolate eyeballs. Eek!



I have had this set of three black frames from Target dollar spot stashed away in my loot for sometime just waiting to be used. I framed orange card stock and added the letters that I cut using my Cricut. To finish it off, I used a vase I had from Dollar Tree and filled it with some little branches I pulled off one of our trees and spray painted them black. Easy peasy!

Pink Vinyl Pretties

Just thought I'd share a couple simple, but pretty projects I did recently. I found the black galvanized bucket at Target Dollar Spot and cut out a pink "A" and some polka dots to pretty it up. I gave this to Laci's teacher, Mrs. Adams, on parent/teacher day. It was filled with Lysol wipes, binder clips, sticky notes and little prizes for her treasure chest like cute erasers, pencils and rings.

Ivy had told me that she would like a water bottle like her brother's and sister's not long ago. Like theirs, meaning she wanted her name on it. I found this little water bottle at Wal-Mart and cut out her name with the Plantain Schoolbook cartridge. She was very happy to get it!

I've got more projects that I can't wait to get to using the Cricut. That thing is so fun!

Wood Name Blocks

Recently I came across this super cute craft while venturing around blog land. I loved this and knew I had to make it. Visit Creative Crate to see her original version. I'm glad she had such a great idea and shared it. It made the perfect gift for a friend that had her bridal shower recently.

I did change mine up a bit from the one she did,but not too much. I used a 2x6 and cut three different pieces to the sizes I wanted. I'm really not sure of the measurements for each piece. I kinda just used my preferred method of measuring which is "eyeballing" it. It helps if you have a table saw so you can rip the 2x6 to make the two pieces "arpenters" and "est.2010." If you purchase your board at Lowe's they can cut it for you at $.25 a cut. I sanded my pieces and then spray painted them porcelain satin(it's what I had on hand). Then I distressed the edges of the blocks by wiping on some black craft paint right along the edges and then wiping off the excess. I used my Cricut to cut the vinyl letters and numbers and then adhered it to the blocks. I thought it turned out pretty cute. Can't wait to make more for gifts and one for us. I think I want ours to say "A Family Forever."

Chirp! Chirp! I Love My Cricut!

Before we get to the Cricut, just wanted to say that the kids' first day of school went well. They both said they had a good day and were ready to go back this morning. We are getting back into our routine and are about to get busier with dance, piano and soccer. Chauffeur time!

Now to that little machine up there, the Cricut Expression. I finally bought one about a month ago.I know I've said numerous times on this blog,"if I had my own Cricut," "when I get my Cricut," "you could cut this out on your Cricut."So, now I have one!! Yay! But after further inspection, I had to send it back to Provo Craft(they paid for that)because the size dial didn't work, which took a week. They sent a brand new one back to me which took another week. Everything works and it is great, but it was so frustrating to have projects waiting and not be able to use my machine. I already had vinyl, transfer paper and cute stuff to do! Can't a girl use her Cricut!

The first thing I cut using the Cricut were the kids' names and intials for their water bottles for school. I think they turned out cute and the kids love them! By the way, I get my vinyl from Expressions Vinyl. I think they have good prices and they ship it pretty quick.



I also cut out monograms and tags for these plastic totes. I found the totes at Target dollar spot and thought they would be good to carry all those extra supplies like Kleenex, paper towels, hand soap etc. Hopefully more projects to share with you soon!!