Chocoflan Cake

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner at my friends' place. I was in charge of cooking two turkeys and made some gravy and stuffing. My friends prepared the side dishes, delicious garlic mashed potatoes and macaroni salad.

With the help of my husband, we also prepared a delicious Chocoflan Cake (see photos). The recipe can be found at http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/chocoflan-112915.aspx. It was so easy to do and the best thing of all, it was so yummy!

On Christmas, we opened presents in the morning and my little one played with the toys Santa brought to him. In the afternoon, my friends came over to my place. For dinner, I prepared some delicious Tortas de Pavo (turkey breast sandwiches) using my MIL's recipe. For dessert we had Key Lime-Pineapple Pie and Apple Marshmallow salad. After dinner we watched Despicable Me and played Monopoly. We had a great time!

Oakland Raiders b-day Cake

Hello! Today is my DH's birthday, so last night we made a chocolate/vanilla cake for him. He is an Oakland Raiders fan and decided to use the Raiders Logo for the cake. I had trouble transferring the image to the cake using piping gel, so I free-handed it. It is not perfect but my husband and little one loved it. I used vanilla flavored heavy whipping cream for the icing. Ah the best thing, it was so yummy!! Thanks for looking!

Snowman

Hello! My son and I are planning on making a daily craft until Christmas and yesterday we made this cute snowman. It is not my original idea. It was inspired from someone's work posted on the Cricut Community Message board but unfortunately I cannot recall her name. I just changed it a little bit and my son helped me to glue all the pieces together.

Materials:

• 4 sheets of White GP cardstock (Walmart)
• Black cardstock (Walmart)
• Brown, red and orange cardstock from M's.
• 4 small brads

Hope you like it!!

Crafting our way to Christmas!

Hi there, my son and I had a wonderful day making a lot of crafts together. First, we played around with our new Cricut Jolly Holidays cartridge (lite) and cut a Santa, a penguin and a cute snowman. Then we made animal headbands for the whole family. Finally, I drew a Santa (inspired by a SU! stamp) and a Christmas tree and then he colored and decorated them (with a little of mommy's help of course). We had a great time together!! Thanks for looking.

2010 Christmas Cards

Hello! Last week my son and I finished putting the Christmas tree up and yesterday I felt it was time to finish this year's Christmas cards. Last year I made different designs, but this year I decided to use one design only. Although very simple, I think they turned out very cute. What do you think?

Materials:

• SU! Very Vanilla cardstock (card base)
• SU! Cherry Cobbler cardstock and ink
• SU! Early Expresso cardstock and ink
• SU! Old Olive cardstock and ink
• SU! Jolly Holiday Designers Series paper

Tools:

• SU! Sparkly & Bright stamp set
• SU! Scallop Edge Border paper punch

Thank You Cards

Hi there! Our son's b-day party was a week ago and we are finally getting back to normal. This is the first b-day party I planned all by myself and have to say it was a lot of fun.

These are the Thank you cards that I sent out to friends and family that attended the party. They were pretty easy to make. I used Stampin' Up! Designers Series Paper pack "Sweet Pea" (retired), SU! Whisper White Cardstock for the card base, and SU! colored cardstock (Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Taken with Teal, and So Saffron). The Thank you stamp is from a SU! stamp set. This is the first time I used my sewing machine on my cards. I used the zig zag stitch as an embellisment. It was not hard at all and it looked awesome.

Thanks for stopping by!

Buzz Lightyear Cake

Last Saturday we finally had our son's birthday party and decided to make the cake ourselves. With the help of my sister in law, we made a birthday cake out of cupcakes. First we cut the Buzz Lightyear at 21" using my Cricut Expression. Using wax paper and piping gel, we tranferred into the cupcakes (previously arranged and covered with a thin layer of icing). Then we decorated the transferred image using sugar-based colored icing. This is the first time I made a cake like this and even though it was a lot of work, it was also a lot of fun. I know the colors are a little off, but we love the end result, plus it was sooo yummy. Most importantly, my son loved it! Thanks for looking!!

Toy Story Banner

Hi there, I finally finished the banner for my son's birthday party. I used my Cricut Expression and the Cricut Toy Story cartridge. I cut Woody and Buzz to fit a 12X24 mat each. I used the picture frame cuts for the banner itself (6'' by 6.5"). For the letters I used the Robotz Cricut cartridge (3"). My dear husband glued them together. Thanks for looking!!

Toy Story Party Favors

Hello! I just finished my son's b-day party favors and wanted to share them with you. I made a total of 25 party favors. I bought the mini plastic totes at Michaels ($1 each) and then cut the Toy Story Logo using my Cricut Expression and the Cricut Toy Story Cart. Then I attached it to each plastic tote using my Crop-a-dile and black eyelets. Hope the kids (and some adults) like them!! Next thing I am working on is a banner and will post it as soon as I finish it. Thanks for looking!!

Toy Story B-day Centerpiece

Hi there, I have been pretty busy making all the decorations for my son's birthday party for the past week. With the help of my wonderful husband, we just finished all the cuts for a total of four centerpieces inspired by the beautiful centerpiece made by PaperMaine-iac from the Cricut Community Message Board. All the cuts were made using a Cricut Expression and the Cricut Toy Story and Robotz cartridges.

My dear husband and I agreed that the hardest to put together was Rex (because of the teeth) followed by Mr. Potatohead (those shoes are a pain in the back!). The easiest was Hamm and of course the title.

We used cardstock from a multi-color cardstock pack I bought at Hobby Lobby and for the flesh-tone cuts, I used SU! Blush Blossom cardstock (retired). Tweezers, spatula and ultra-fine scissors came very handy.

Thanks for looking!!

Updated to list materials and tools used to make centerpieces.

Tools:

• Cricut Expresssion Die Cutting Machine
• Toy Story Cricut cartridge
• tweezers
• Paper crimper

Materials:

• SU! Blush Blossom cardstock (skin tone)
• Hobby Lobby 8.5" x 11" color cardstock pack
• Scotch Scrapbooker's glue with 2-way applicator (Michaels)
• Wood sticks (Walmart)
• Tin container from Michaels ($3)
• Georgia Pacific white cardstock
• ATG tape gun (double sided tape)

Buzz Lightyear B-day Party Invitations

Hi there, I am so excited Thanksgiving is just around the corner! We'are throwing a party to celebrate my son's 4th birthday the Thanksgiving weekend and he picked Toy Story as the party's theme. I made about 16 invitations using the Toy Story Cricut Cartridge and Cricut Design Studio. Cardstock is from one of the big cardstock packs from Hobby Lobby and for the base I used white cardstock from Walmart. My wonderful husband helped me to glue down the little pieces and even though it was a pain in the back, we loved the end result. Hope you like them! If anyone would like a copy of the CDS file, please leave a post here with your email and I will send it to you. Edited to add that the file is no longer available as I lost most of my cut files a couple of months ago when my computer was acting up. Thanks for looking!!

More 2009 Scrapbook LOs

Hi there, I'm almost done with my son's 2009 scrapbook and these are the last three layouts I have completed. 3 more to go!! Something I learned while making this book is that I have more trouble completing 8X8 layouts than 12x12.Guess I am sticking to 12x12 books from now on. Anyway, I am using the same DCWV Doodlin' Around Cardstock Stack and LO sketches from Sketch Inspiration http://sketchinspiration.ning.com/ Thanks for looking!!

Baby & Halloween-09 Layouts

WOW, I can't believe it's been more than two months since my last post. I have been pretty busy with my three years old son and working hard as always. Here is another baby layout using Rock-A-Baby SU! Scrapping kit. My son was 6 months old, wasn't he adorable?

For the second layout I used pictures I took in the Halloween of 2009. It was the first halloween my son actually went trick-or-treating. He was a cute lion. We all had a blast!! I used the DCWV Doodlin' Around 8x8 paper stack. Hope you like them!!!

I used sketches from Sketch Inspiration http://sketchinspiration.ning.com/ on both of them. Thanks for looking!!

Baby Scrapbook

About 2 months ago, I started putting together a scrapbook with pictures of my son when he was a baby. Here are the layouts I have completed so far. I used sketches from http://sketchinspiration.ning.com/ for all of them.

Part of the Cute as a Button layout (especifically, left bottom corner picture with ribbons and buttons) was inspired by a layout made by Sheila from http://shesasassylady.blogspot.com/.

Cardstock, patterned paper and ribbons are from Stampin Up!

Thanks for looking!!

4th of July Fireworks

Happy 4th of July!! Last night our town had the 4th of July Fireworks Celebration and we spent the evening there. Weather was nice and the fireworks were amazing. My son was so excited! Here are a few pictures from last night. Sorry about the quality of the pictures but I took them with my iPhone. Thanks for looking!!

More Robotz

Hi there, I have been pretty busy last couple of weeks putting together my son's baby scrapbook and making some cards. I will be posting my projects this week.
Last week was raining a lot, so we spent a lot of time indoors and my little one got bored. He loves to use the cricut, so we made three of the four 3-D robots from the Cricut Robotz Cart. He picked the colors up and helped me load and unload the paper (he knows which buttons to press). We had a blast. Hope you like them!!

Creative Writer Blog Award and a RAK

I would like to thank Sheila from the She's a Sassy Lady blog for this blog award. Please check her wonderful blog out at http://shesasassylady.blogspot.com/

As part of this award I am supposed to tell you 6 truths about myself and 1 lie or vice versa. I chose to tell 6 truths and 1 lie, so try to figure out which is the lie.

1. My favorite color is brown.
2. My husband supports my hobby 100%.
3. I love cats.
4. I am addicted to SU! products.
5. I consider myself an environmentalist but realistic.
6. I like soccer.
7. My husband taught me how to cook.

Please leave a comment under this post telling me which of the statements above is not true and I will randomly pick a winner of a Crop-a-dile among the ones who guessed it right on Wednesday June 23, 2010. (Sorry, US only). Thanks!!!

Graduation party favors

Hi, the past few weeks my life has been very stressful and even though things aren't back to normal, I have to be thankful that they aren't getting any worse. I would like to thank you for all the prayers.

After experiencing so many problems with my blog (wasn't able to fix it), I thought it was time to share some of my creations with you.

This week I made 45 graduation party favors for my mom. She is a school teacher and her school is having a graduation party by the beginning of July and she wanted to give each graduate a little something. So I came up with this idea. I still need to glue clear bags with candy to each of them (photo 1) but the end product would look something like photo 2. Hope you like them!!

Tools:

• Cricut Expression
• Create a Critter cart (owl)
• Everyday Paper Dolls cart (cap)
• Big Shot Express
• SU! Top Note Die
• Paper crimper

Materials:

• Recollections cardstock (Neutral pack from M's)
• The Paper Studio Grad-u-a-tion cardstock pack (from HL)
• Black cardstock from Wal-Mart
• SU! clear bags
• Glue dots
• Orange cardstock from M's

Blog Problems

It's been a while since the last time I posted and wanted to touch base. After making some changes to my blog due to some security issues (had to remove family pictures), I messed it up and all of the messages my kind followers had posted disappeared. I want to apologize for that. Also, I can't get into details, but would like to ask you to keep my family in your prayers. Thanks!!!

3-D Robot

Hello everyone!! I recently bought the Cricut Robotz cartridge and after going through the booklet, I found out there were 3-D cuts. They are way too cute!! I made the robot on page 74 (robot47) and used DS to cut it. It was a little tricky to put it together but the end result was way cute! One word of advice, don't tell your kids you are going to make one and wait until they go to bed. My little one was awake when I made it and he was very impatient :( Hope you like it.

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

Cricut Cake Giveaway

The Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot is giving away a Cricut Cake. You can check it out at http://cuttlebugchallenge.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-is-red-velvet-and-silver-and-youve.html

Good luck!!

Sunshine Award

I would like to thank Audrey from the Cut and Some blog for passing the Sunshine Award on to me. Please check out her wonderful blog: http://cuteandsome.blogspot.com/ .

Ms. Bright Side Award

I would like to thank Shari from Shari's Creations with the Cricut. for passing the Ms. Bright Side Award on to me. You can check out her wonderful blog at http://shariscreationswiththecricut.blogspot.com/ . Shari, thanks a bunch!!

Little Superhero Cape

Last week we were watching a Barney & Friends episode on PBS and one of the characters, I think it was BJ, was pretending to be a superhero. He was wearing a cape and my little one begged me to get one for him.

We coudn't find one locally, so I started looking online. I found some toddler's custom made capes for $35 plus shipping and handling and I thought they were on the expensive side. I also found instructions on how to make one and decided to give it a try. I bought one yard of red cotton fabric for $2 and I already had some yellow and blue felt (for design). Yay! I finally had a chance to use my sewing machine that had been collecting dust since the last time I used it to make curtains for the formal dining/living area of my home.

In the original pattern I found online they used fabric hook-and-loop fasteners but my son was complaining it was uncomfortable, so I went to J's and bought a fashion fit clip for $4. I removed the elastic fabric and then the clips were hand sewn to the cape. It is not perfect, but he loves it!!