Stick to the Rules!

During a recent online shopping excursion, my Sister-in-law added some of this PeelnStick ruler tape to her purchase and I had to copy her! It is VERY VERY COOL and I am now trying desperately not to stick it onto everything in site! Though, let's face it, if I did and then decided that I didn't like it covering EVERYTHING, I could just pull it back off because it is REMOVABLE!! SO COOL!

Thermoweb PeelnStick Ruler Tape

And yes, I realize that I may be getting a little over excited about it, but I still like it! My favorite application so far is sticking it onto my ribbon shelf. It will be very great to have a easy accuracy when I am chopping ribbon lengths for a project!

So, fess up. Tell the truth. Would you stick to the rules? 

Let it snow, let it snow!!

We woke up this morning in Calgary to SNOW!! I guess it has been a long time coming, as I truly can't remember a year when we didn't have snow by the end of October. My back yard is officially a winter wonderland and I am glad to be home inside today and working on my daughter's new bedroom! (I'll share pics SOON!)

Anyone for a dip?!

In the mean time, here's a little bit of my world... no swimming this month for us, but we may potentially be able to dig out that hot tub for an evening. And as long as we are in the spirit, here also is a scrapbook page that I did for the Cricut bundle that we sold on The Shopping Channel last weekend. The pricing is truly phenomenal if you are shopping for yourselves or as a gift!!

Made with Winter Frolic Cricut Cartridge

Sorry about the blurry picture... I can't retake as the page is in Toronto still. Isn't blurry inspiration better than no inspiration? :)

Happy Snow Day everyone!!

Winter Frolics Appliqué

The snow is NOT flying in Calgary yet, but I can't ignore that it is lurking right around the corner! And with the flurries outside will begin the frantic flurry of shopping and preparing for Christmas! The Shopping Channel gives me the perfect opportunities and excuses to start some seasonal crafting in advance and seeing how it is time to put away my Halloween Appliqué, I thought that I would replace it's spot on my mantle with a winter one! 

Pre-plan your design by cutting the shapes out of printer paper

Winter frolic has lots of fun images to choose from, and so I pre-planned my design by cutting out some shapes and tweaking them until I got the perfect sizes. Wow, pre-planning!! go figure! Who knew that I had it in me!?

Once everything was planned, may I just must stop again to remind you that I PRE-planned, I ironed Heatn'Bond to the back of all of my fabric. I personally am loving the Ultrahold weight for applique, and while I have also cut fabric that is backed with the HeatnBond light, the Ultrahold seems to deliver the very best results.

Next step is cutting the images, which of course will go VERY quickly if you have, ehem... pre-planned your cut sizes!

Some tips on cutting fabric with your Cricut machine:

   1. You MUST use a backing on the fabric, regardless of whether you are cutting cotton, silk or rayon.

   2. Use a new super sticky mat to hold your fabric securely in place while cutting. This will help give you a crisper cut.

3. A new blade is great, but not always 100% necessary. Try putting a new one in if you aren't getting a clean cut.

4. It's ok if the paper backing comes off of the fabric before you cut. It will still cut well!

5. If you are having trouble cutting, try flipping the fabric upside down to cut. Sometimes this works better! You can even use the 'Mirror Image' feature on your Cricut Expression or Create so that your image is still 'right side up'.

Iron your cut images into place and you are ready to stitch!

Once all of my images were cut out, I layered them onto the base fabric and started machine appliquéing them into place. I found it effective to have placed my 'snow' down first and top stitched it in place before layering any other pieces on top of it. This way, I could sew one continual topstitch instead of starting and stopping at all of the overlapped pieces.

Finished Appliqué

Once I was done stitching, I put a layer of batting behind my finished piece and then put it into a frame. 

Close Up! 

I think this little penguin guy is adorable and may end up on some Christmas cards as well! 

Happy Crafting!

AND THE WINNERS ARE.....

Thank you again to all the new people who are following my blog and to my buddies for sending all the newbies over!!

It's time for my first ever Cricut AND Cuttlebug contest draw, hopefully we can make this a regular thing! I've used a Random Number Generator to pick out our winners.

So.....drum roll please......For the Cuttlebug Folders, congratulations to Stampi!!

Winner of the Cuttlebug Folders #37

 Winner of the Give A Hoot Cricut Cartridge is ap_lemos!

Winner of the Give A Hoot Cricut Cartridge #61

I will send you both a quick email so that we can get these shipped out to you asap!!

Congratulations to you both and for everyone else, keep checking back for future contests :)

A new pet!!?

Sunrise

It's really quite amazing that one part of the world can be so much warmer than another! I REALLY don't think it's fair, but I was happy to get to enjoy a few rays of sunshine in sunny Florida!

Poser!

HSN (Home shopping Network) went great! I was there for two days and we sod our original Cricut, Cuttlebug, AND the new and wonderful Cricut Imagine. We sold out of the Cricut Imagine, but you can check out the other deals online still at HSN.

Before heading to the studio my first morning, I took a walk around the wildlife preserve that is behind our hotel. It was a BUSY place! I saw TWO alligators, a dozen or more turtles that were oddly gathered all in one spot, geckos galore and some beautiful birds!

eek!

My son asked me to bring him an alligator, but I figured it probably wasn't worth the hassle that I would have in customs! So no new alligator pet, purse or shoes!!

Meanwhile, I am home again and preparing for our next appearance on The Shopping Channel! We will be there with another awesome Cricut Bundle on November 14th. If you already have a Cricut, check out our airing to add to your cartridge collection!!