What's Black and White and Pink All Over????

WHY A ZEBRA OF COURSE !! 
My youngest daughter is having another baby girl on March 24th.  Yeah !  Another granddaughter to love !!!
She chose a Zebra and Hot Pink theme for the nursery.  It is so pretty together. 

Her best friend gave her a baby shower this weekend and I color coordinated my gifts to match the nursery theme.  She loved it !!!

I made the Zebra tags using my Create A Critter Cricut Cartridge.

I even found these adorable Glittery pink Zebra bags at Target

and Zebra striped tissue at Hobby Lobby.

And I made her this adorable card using

New Arrival Cricut Cartridge and

my cuttlebug polka embossing folder for

the white background pattern paper

Here is the "mommy to be" and my

adorable 9 yr old granddaughter. 

She gave the new baby a Zebra pillow pet !  So cute.

She is very excited to be BIG SISTER after all this time :)

Now we just have to WAIT for the little bundle of joy to arrive !!!

Homemade Washi Tape - Woohoooo !

I am the Designer of the Day  at The Bug Bytes today.  I wanted to share something really fun with everyone today.  Washi tape is all the rage in the paper crafts world right now.  And while I LOVE it, I really don't like how expensive it is to have a big selection in my stash.  So I made some of my own !

It's pretty easy and I really enjoyed coming up with lots of different patterns and colors to use on my projects.

Here are the steps to make your own Washi Tape:

1. You need to get some Score Tape by ScorPal.  I used the 1" score tape but any size will work.  This is a double sided tape where both sides are sticky with one side having a paper lining.

2. Tear off as long of a strip as you like. I made several 12" strips.  I laid them lining side down on my craft mat with the sticky side up.

3. I took plain white tissue paper (like you wrap gifts with) and pressed tissue over each piece of the tape, smoothing it as I went along. You could use colored tissue as well...I just didn't have any to try.

4. Flip the tape over and trim excess tissue paper from the sides with your scissors.

5. Now the real fun begins ! You can color your washi tape using any misting inks such as Tattered Angels, Mr. Huey, Maya Road.  Just spray the color on, then lay a paper towel over the top to soak up the excess. I left a few plain white too.

6. Let the misted strips air dry....I hate to wait so I put a fan on them to dry a little faster.  DO NOT use your heat gun on them as you don't want to melt the adhesive tape.

7. I added various stamps from my stash over the top of the dry misted tape strips.  Different texture stamps or numbers, script fonts, various shapes...you name it, you can add it to make some really adorable Washi Tape.

Here are some samples of the homemade Washi Tapes I made in less than an hour.  I am addicted to making more for every occassion now.  Hope it inspires you to make your own !

Valentines Day Traditions

Hubby and I usually keep our Valentines Day gifts to traditional type of things but this year, I did something a bit extra fun for him.  

I made this adorable squirrel tag with my Stretch the Imagination Cricut Cartridge

to put on the container I got him to store peanuts on his desk at work to

have a quick snack in the afternoon to keep his energy level up. 

That's what true love is about, right?  Taking care of each other.

He got a big kick out of the tag and the cleverness of the gift.

And my traditional gift from him were these gorgeous tri-colored roses.

They are so fragrant...I just love them and of course the giver more ! 

Most years we just have a romantic dinner at home so we can

enjoy ourselves and not fight the crowds at the restaurants. 

I enjoy setting a pretty table for us to amp up the romance !

And here is my sweetie getting ready to enjoy his

rib eye dinner complete with roasted potatoes, grilled

asparagus, crescent rolls and spinach salad.

A glass of red wine and chocolate covered strawberries tops

off our traditional valentine meal !

Hope you all enjoyed your special LOVE day as well.

Happy Valentines Day !

It's Valentines Day !  I hope you have a wonderful day filled with LOVE !  Mine day sure is...

My day started off with a wonderful breakfast cooked and served by my sweet hubby ! 
I LOVE that man so much...it makes my heart hurt sometimes...but in a good way !

After DH left for work, I got to open up my Valentines Day Swap items from two new Cricut Circle friends.

WOW...Ali (aka Scrappin*Creations) sent me all these wonderful items.

She made the beautiful heart box and filled it with some of my favorite

valentine candies...DOVE heart shaped chocolates.

All the other goodies are perfect for my craft projects too.

She was even thoughtful enough to send me a new Santa for my collection...

isn't he adorable ?!?!

And more WOW's when I opened my gift from Becka (aka ScrapperBecka)

Love all the little stamps to use on my cards and the Happy Days paper pad

is so colorful and just my style. And she made me the prettiest notebook too !

I LOVE IT ALL !!!   Thank you ladies for making my Valentines Day a special one.

This afternoon I am going to my granddaugther's Valentine party at school so that will be more Valentines fun !  She was over last weekend and we decorated her Valentines Day Box for school with my Cricut.  It turned out so cute !  She did it all herself...even used my glimmer mist on her heart doilies and made her favorite Panda on the cricut.

  

Then later tonight hubby and I will continue our Valentines celebration with a date night...dinner and a movie. I made him a little something for Valentines Day but won't post it just yet...I wouldn't want him peeking :) 

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY to each of you ! 

USE YOUR STASH CHALLENGE - LOVE Layout

Still doing the USE YOUR STASH CHALLENGE on the Circle messageboard.  Here is a layout I made using some old paper scraps I had laying around and doily stamps from My Minds Eye I have been wanting to use. I hand cut the heart shapes out of the scrap paper and inked them up some.

I also used a LOVE die cut from the new Victorian Romance cartridge that I actually made

 for a Valentines Day project but was too large...it worked perfectly on the layout instead :)

I just distress inked over it to get the color I wanted.

So what have you created lately ?