Turtle Baby Shower Cake

Here is the turtle baby shower cake to go with the invitations. It is just two 9x13 pans trimmed to the diaper bag. The cake is dirty iced with double chocolate icing and then covered in fondant. The turtle is made from Oreo cake balls and gum paste. Fondant is way cool to work with and I use Marshmallow Fondant so its super tasty too. I have a Cricut cake for the details on the outside.

Baby Shower Invitations

I made these for a very good friend of mine who LOVES turtles and is having a little boy. The patterned paper is an old Stampin Up set that worked perfect for the colors I wanted and I accented with Old Olive and Bashful Blue for Mr. Turtle. I used my trusty Cricut, Gypsy, and th Life is a Beach cartridge for the turtle. Of course no cute turtle is complete without googly eyes :) The party will be decorated similar so come back for the decor!!!

Twelve Days of Christmas Day 12 1/2

Ok I had two issues with this post and both were completely a ditzy moment on my behalf... 1) I have no clue which teacher gift I forgot in my 12 Days of Christmas but whatever it was I didn't take a picture of it and 2) I don't follow recipes so when something turns out great I have no idea what I did or can I tell someone how I do it. This drives my family CRAZY!!! BUT I will try to tell you HOW I made the puppy chow even though you can probably find a recipe somewhere. I got irritated the first time I made this by the recipe I found online because I had about 2 cups of Chex cereal left over and it seemed like such a waste. SO I made 1 large box of cereal, by melting 1 stick of butter, 3/4 C peanut butter, and 1 bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips plus about a 1/2 cup of chocolate chips. I melted this in the microwave for about 2 1/2 minutes on cook power 5 and stirring about ever 30 seconds. I dumped the cereal in a paper grocery bag and poured the melted mixture over it. I shook the bag well until all the cereal was covered. I then dumped about 2 cups of powdered sugar and repeated the shaking process. I then dumped it out on wax paper or foil to 'cool' or dry. I bagged it up with some Christmas ribbon. I got about 12 bags out of it.

Twelve Days of Christmas Day Eleven

I saw these round truffle chocolates when I was shopping for my 12 Days of Christmas and I couldn't resist the little Santas. I got my inspiration from the cartoon that said Sanat got your letter you've been good this year and he died laughing. I DIDN"T think that was appropriate for an elementary school so I modified it to :

I wrote Santa to tell him all your kids were good this year, he Rolled On The Floor Laughing!

Merry Christmas!

Twelve days of Christmas Day Ten

This one took me awhile because I kept coming up with "Just Keep Swimming" but I couldn't come up with how to relate it to Christmas or the teachers. So I went to It's o-FISH-ally almost Christmas Break! Kinda corny but the little red fish make me smile.

Twelve Days of Christmas Day Nine

I try not to repeat any ideas but I couldn't resist anything with the Grinch this year. The original poem I found called for green candy canes. I couldn't find 100 green candy canes without spending a small fortune. I did find candy canes with a green stripe so I added my own twist to the poem.


When the Grinch discovered,
There was no way,
To keep Christmas from Coming,
On Christmas Day,
He devised a new plan...
Though not quite as mean,
He licked all the teacher candy canes,
And turned them part
GREEN!

Playing With Vinyl Again

This was a special request from a very special girl and I can't resist a new challenge. Especially when it comes to using my Sure-Cuts-A-Lots & Cricut. Even though I am NOT a Hawkeye Fan since I paid for my education at ISU, I helped with the project anyway. Im pretty impressed with how they turned out especially since I was using Wii Rockband sticks to make it.

Twelve Days of Christmas Day Eight

Another funny one I found online. Had to improvise a little since my budget was tight. I used the Stampin Up Pillowbox die to cut the puzzle boxes. I have a good friend who hooked me up with the shavings of wood for my puzzle 'pieces'. The 100 puzzles had the same concept just different packaging. The label says "Expert Jigsaw Puzzle"

Twelve Days of Christmas Day Seven

I had a great elf helper with this one to make the cake pops with no stick :). The chocolate pools to look like it is melting. It is tied with 3 tags, a snowflake made with Stampin Up's new three-in-one punch to look like a snowflake from glitter paper, a tag punched with the Stampin Up Curley Label Punch that says "Florida Snowball", and the third that was cut in a square that says "Caution throwing this snowball may cause a food fight". Happy Crafting!

Twelve Days Of Christmas Day Six

I bought the 100 ct box of candy canes, made the labels on standard address labels to day "CANDY CANE PUZZLE", and used my leftover paper scraps and the Stampin Up Ornament punch to punch 2 ornaments per candy cane. I used the labels to attach the paper ornaments. The most fun part was breaking the 100 candy canes! I tried to get them in larger pieces so that they could still eat them. I did $100 for about $4.

Twelve Days of Christmas Day Five

I found a great deal on the Pop Tart Crisps at the store so I needed to incorporate them into my holiday. Remember I am doing these gifts for my daughters PFA for 100 faculty members, 12 days, on a budget of $150. The red card stock was creased at 1" on the long side then cut in equal 3.6" strips on the short side. This gives you 3 3.6"x8.5" projects per 8 1/2 x 11 card stock. I staples the small bags in the fold side which is the matchbook side. Once it is stapled you can bend the long side so it catches inside the matchbook lip. I then cut the poems 2.5"x3.25", and the Christmas Paper mat 3x3.5. I stapled that on the fold side so that the matchbook would close nicely. The poem is:

Welcome to your PFA’s Ha Ha Holidays!

Our goal is to make your 12 Days before Christmas,

POP with excitement,

Keep you sweet not TART,

Leave a fun memory CRISP in your mind.

ENJOY!!!

Twelve Days of Christmas Day Four

Holiday Survival Kit was found online and tweaked for the teachers a bit. I simply used a brown bag, Curling Ribbon, green card stock. The poem is:

Happy 12 Days Of Christmas!


Holiday Survival Kit

A stick of GUM to remind you to stick to it.
Christmas Break will be here soon.
A hershey kiss to remind you that you are loved.
Even when your students are bad.
A Tootsie Roll to remind you to roll with each day,
Even if your students have other plans.
A pin to remind you to stay sharp,
Or the students will take over!
A Smartie to help remind you that all kids are smart,
Even though they are ready for break too
A Starbrite remember, you are your students bright star,
Even if all they talk about is SANTA!

Happy 12 Days Of Christmas

12 Days of Christmas Day Three

I got the poem from some other wonderful crafter online. I used some green Christmas paper and used the Top Note Die from Stampin Up. The baggie is a bit small but since Im making 100 items everyday on a $150 for twelve days so we went economical. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Here's the poem:


The Grinch has been here!
He left just one clue...
This little green pile,
Of Grinchy "Pooh".

But why did he do it?
Did he want to get caught?

As the Grinch would say,
"I most certainly did not!"
But Santa and the reindeer
(with nose set on dim),

Landed on the roof,
And scared IT out of him!
He left in a hurry -
Homeward bound,

Leaving little green piles

All over the ground.

12 Days of Christmas Day Two

Another fun one that is super easy. I couldn't find just the red M&M's so I actually divided bags and will be using the green later. The tubes are from Stampin Up, along with the paper tabs. The red pieces of paper are 1 1/2 x 4 1/4 folded in half. I stapled them on the bags and then put the ornament punch overtop. The reindeer stamp is from Walmart $1 bin because i needed something cute and a little funny. I added the ribbon to add some bling to the tab. Only 98 more to make :)

Teacher's 12 Days Of Christmas

The PFA at my daughter's school started a tradition the last 12 days before school lets out before Christmas Break we put a little something in their mailboxes to make the last couple weeks fun. It started as the 12 days of Christmas and have moved onto the 'Ha Ha Holidays" Each day its something different and we usually do 100 faculty for 12 days for about $150. Which is VERY challenging even though I am as FRUGAL as they come :) Here's the first one I did. I go the 10 pack of chocolate coal at Big Lots for $1 and it is wrapped in a little square of red tissue paper with a twine tie. The poem is:
I heard you have been naughty not nice,

And Santa even checked his list twice.
He noticed too much work and no play,
A lot of patience for little pay.

So all the way from the North Pole,

all you're getting is a lump of coal.

We made this using the pillow box Sizzix die from Stampin' Up, Elegant Lines Embossing Folder from Stampin' Up, Beatiful Butterflies Bigz Die, and Wild Wasabi grosgrain ribbon also from Stampin' Up.  We also used scrap pieces of Melon Mambo patterned paper & Melon Mambo Cardstock from Stampin' Up.  More to come!!!

Hostess Club

We had a lot of great projects today...can't wait to get them posted!

Sent from Nikki's iPad

Vinyl Banner Made with Cricut and Gypsy!!!

I made this banner from scratch using the Sports Mania Cricut Cartridge, My Gypsy, and my Expression. The only thing I used Sure-Cuts-A-Lot for is the Logo in the middle for my daughters team. I pieced it together one ball at a time and thank goodness for the 12x24 mat!!! I got the white banner from a sign company for $20 and also used primarily scraps from the sign companies to do everything. Check Craigslist or with your local sign people for their scraps! Their big machines leave a nice little leftover piece for our Cricut Machines!!!

Cake Projects before Cricut Cake

I have been doing stuff Ive just been too busy to get anything uploaded. Schools our, summers here, deployment started, and Im pooped. Getting re-motivated with lots of ideas. I simply used marshmallow fondant and a 9x13 cake pan and a heart shaped cake pan to make the arm so they looked bent behind the back of the uniform.

And More Cake with the help of CRICUT!!!

Yup you guessed it I used my new favorite FONDANT again! I used the Cricut for my field template which was super easy. There are 3 cakes under there and it measures 15x15. I dirty iced it before I used the fondant to hold it on a bit better. There might be extra people at the party so I made cupcakes just in case! I took pictures of all the players at the last game and they are laminated and tooth-picked to the field. It really didn't take that long to do at all. Enjoy!