Dusting off the old sew machine!

Suddenly my craft desk feels very small!

Until last night, my poor sew machine had been banished to the shelf ever since I got my Cricut last September. I had to dust it off because this weekend is my Niece's baby shower (that's right folks, I'm going to be a 24 year old GREAT aunt! So weird, but I'm excited!). There is a wicker bassinet that has been in my family for 43 years, and almost every sibling, niece and nephew and a few friends and cousins has spent the first month or so of their life in it, and every baby gets new bassinet decor.
This baby's (still nameless, but a little boy!) nursery theme is jungle, so my Mom and I decided to go with that. After hunting through the fabric stores and coming home empty handed three times, we finally decided on a jungle baby print with green flannel lining and a jungly quilt. Yes I made up the word jungly. Deal with it.

So, I made the skirt that covers the legs last night.I can't wait to show you the completed bassinet. Heck, I can't wait to see it myself! It's going to be pretty stinking cute.


And tonight, I'm making (my first ever!) cheater quilt. I bought the top fully assembled at JoAnn's for 50% off, thanks to the nicest counter cutter I've ever encountered there (say that three times fast!) and I'm both nervous and excited to get started.I'm going to add satin tags along the edges of the quilt because I know how much little boys love silky things :)

Wish me luck!

I'm in love with a mini

album! I made my first mini album this past week, and I had so much fun that I've already made a second one. I love doing these!

Much like my regular scrapbooks, my minis are super simple and leave lots of room for pictures. The precious baby mini has almost no embellishments, because I don't really have any unisex ones (I'm not sure who that one is for yet). I may add some things later to make it more boy themed for my new nephew or my new GREAT nephew!

The Evalyn album is for some friends who are due to have their first baby later this month. I thought that it would be a sweet thing for them to fill with pictures and mail to an out of town family member or something :)
The little plaque on the front cover is to write in Evalyn's birthdate. The inside cover has a tag that pulls out of a pocket, and that can be written on or a photo attached to it. Each of the pages has a simple little embellishment, but mostly I just left lots of room for pictures and writing about how adorable Evie is!

So those are my very first minis. I'm already stalking ebay to purchase more chipboard books to cover and create more minis for all of the preggos in my life.

3 year old birthday card

I made this sweet little card for my nephew PJ, who will be three next month. Where the heck does time go?! It seems like just yesterday I was hogging all his baby cuddles and listening to him grunt and try to figure out the world.

Everything except for the 3 is from Create a critter, the 3 is from Plantin Schoolbook. Since there was so much going on with the train I had a hard time coming up with a background, so I settled for plain blue stripes. The bear and the 3 are pop-dotted from the page.

Since PJ is only 3, I guess this card is more for his mama (my sister), who also just got her first cricut a few days before I did! They live 500 miles away but someday maybe we'll be able to have a crafty get together! A girl can dream.

I've discovered so many new wonderful blogs this week that I haven't taken the time to post on my own. I just love the cricut community I've stumbled upon, everyone is so creative and supportive. It's just so much fun.

Hope you all are having a wonderful week!

More baby hats!

I'm surrounded by babies and preggos right now, so I've been making a ton of baby hats. (this will be my last baby post for awhile though, even I'm getting sick of them!)
I love those baby hats that end in a long tail with a knot in the end, so I drafted a pattern (this means I drew a big triangle on paper), and made these two little cuties for my friend Becca. I'm really happy with how they turned out and I'll definitely be making more for the millions of babies that are coming in the next few months :)
Also, this is how I wrapped them:

sometimes wrapping the gift is just as fun as making it!