All Aboard the Babycakes Express! "It's All About Baby" Blog Hop, Sept. 14

It is my pleasure to participate in the It's All About Baby Blog Hop, hosted by Miranda at Nana's Scrap Spot. As I'm the last stop on this great event, I'll make this a "linger longer" sort of post to describe my project in depth.

I thought of this project when considering what to make for a monthly "scraps to treasures" blog hop. I'd recently emptied a cylindrical container that held Panko bread crumbs -- and if you're like me, you'll relate to this: I looked at that container and instantly thought, "What can I make from this?"

...and don't ask me WHY, but I thought of a train, using Close To My Heart's newest "Babycakes" line of paper. Here is the finished project: 

Starting with the engine, I covered the clean can with a wrap of the dotted Babycakes B&T Duo. I trimmed it out with the zip-strips on the edge of the designer paper.  I made the engineer's house just by guessing the measurements ("eyeballing"). I decided to make windows all the way around, and cut them out using an X-Acto knife. I lined the windows with scrap acetate, to give the structure body.

Here's a view of the front of the Engine:

I decided to make the "nose" of the Engine using rosettes that I stacked on top of the removable plastic can lid, leaving the can empty for a gift onesie for baby. If I was feeling really industrious, I'd design and make the matching onesie -- maybe later!

On the tip of the "nose", I put a beautiful rhinestone gem that I cut from some scraps from The Buckle Boutique.  I'm newly appointed to The Buckle Boutique's first Design Team ... you can see my first post for them by clicking HERE.  (It's a whole different project that I'm featuring today! Talk about industrious!!  I've been BUSY!!)

I crafted the hinged roof over the engineer's house, punching the edge with a CTMH new scallop edge punch. (Love that thing!!) 

TIP:  Oh, let me give you a hint on the rosettes:  Normally, I'd make these using hot glue to hold them securely. But this year, CTMH introduced Adhesive Dots that are super-duper strong and WAY easier to use for rosettes. Really! Try them!

The wheels are also made with rosettes, these cut from CTMH "Whisper" cardstock.  The monkey hanging from the roof is from the "Wild Things" CTMH stamp set.  I dubbed the train the "Babycakes Express" and set the little sign on my computer, trimming it and inking the edges in CTMH Exclusive Ink in Sunset color.

Moving on to the Cage Car:

This car was cut on my Silhouette Cameo using a file purchased from the Silhouette Online Store. 

I had to manipulate the file a little bit -- and the Silhouette Designer Edition software makes this super-easy! -- to be the right size.  Again, the wheels are rosettes cut from CTMH Whisper cardstock. 

The adorable giraffes (love them!) are from the Cricut Create a Critter cartridge, cut in 7.5".   I inked the edges of the giraffes, and also tied bows on their necks using yellow seam binding ribbon.

For the "box car", I further manipulated the file for the cage car (above) by running the Cameo's digital "eraser" through the horizontal center of the cage. I joined the sides together digitally, added the word CIRCUS, and dropped the flourishes onto the swirled top edges.

Pardon my pun (but I'm like that!), but since this is a "box car", that is what this car holds -- a dozen 1.75" cube boxes that can hold candy or other baby gifts like socks, gift cards, binkies, etc.  The back of the car has intentionally off-center stacked layers under a sign that says "It's about to get Wild Around Here!"  I tied some giraffe-stained ribbon to the sign. It's wild!

The only other detail that I want to show you is how I opted to link the rail cars together. I cut apart a CTMH "Base and Bling" Necklace to use the discs to be attracted to magnets I put on the railcar perimeter. Nifty, huh?

BACK to the BUSINESS of the BLOG HOP:

If you care to comment on my post here, and also choose to become a follower of my blog, I'll put you in the running for my delicious BLOG CANDY!  You see, writing this post in this yummy brown color has gotten me thinking about ... CHOCOLATE!  And I have an extra Close To My Heart "A Chocolate Affair" stamp set to give away to a randomly picked person who comments/follows this blog.

As I mentioned earlier in the Hop, I'm the last (and not least) stop on this fun Hop. So there's no one to send you off to -- I'm just going to say THANK YOU for hopping along with us.  Do come again!

P.S. -- If I can help you purchase any Close To My Heart products, it would be my honor to be your Consultant.  You can find an online catalog at http://cardmonkey.ctmh.com.

Defiantly DiFfeReNt & CreAtiVeLy Yours,

Revisiting my Grandbaby's Baby Shower

Over on one of my favorite blogs ("You Had Me At Craft", by Alex), Alex's guest designer Suzanne is featuring a monkey-themed diaper cake that she made for the baby shower in anticipation of the birth of her third granddaughter.

Now, I'm not as lucky as Suzanne to have THREE granddaughters -- at least, not yet! -- but last year on my blog, I featured all of my monkey-themed decorations for the baby shower held in honor of the then-pending birth of my one-and-only granddaughter, Charlotte!  

So in this post, I'm going to reprise all of the decorations I made, and I'll link it up to Alex's site.  Monkeys are very "in" right now, with many now featured on Cricut cartridges galore. I hope this gives you some cute ideas for either a baby shower or a birthday party!

Top left is the four-tier diaper cake I made for Charlotte, done in theme-colors of chocolate monkey brown, pink, white and green.

I used the Cake Basics cartridge to cut the large "chocolate" paper icing layer on top, as well as the lime green ring that adorns it. The leaves for the palm tree were also cut using that cartridge; instead of using them flat at the vein opening, I curled them and overlapped them to give them dimension.

See the white paper roses at the top? I'd normally cut each of those petals using my flower punches by Punch Bunch. BUT Cake Basics comes with a lot of single leaves itself, so I set the Cricut to "auto fill" for the 1/2" white petal, hit cut and went about the chore of trying to organize my craft loft. When I returned, some 300 petals were cut from a single 12x12" sheet! Boy, did that save time with the flower punch!

In case you're wondering, the middle layer of the "cake" was made using new printed "designer" Pampers. A single pack has the two complementing designs of pale pink and darker pink. There are also boy colors too, though I wonder if "Real Boys" would wear designer diapees?


Here are the cute wrappers I designed to cover Hershey nuggets.  To make them, I used my Adobe Illustrator program but you can use whatever design program you're most comfortable with.  

Your template should be 1" wide x 3" high to fit the Hershey's Nugget chocolate "pillows".  (I like these because there is more space to decorate than a Hershey's kiss, and infinitely more chocolate per bite that way. Hahaha, one for the shower, one for me, one to decorate, one for the tummy....)



Pick your images from any of the free clip-art programs available and use your theme colors. Our colors are pink, brown and accented with green. To create the patterned paper look, simply type O's, or dots, hearts (Alt-3 = ♥) or xoxoxo ... whatever your heart desires.


Do you have a favorite among these ten designs?  Mine is probably the "precious little monkey" shown at the front (top, here), or the front one on the lower picture, "Welcome Baby Cohick!"  
 I used these in the favor boxes as well as on the tables and on the featured "Candy Station".



Then I also made these cute door-prize boxes for the lucky winners of the Monkey Games we played at the shower...

To make this adorable box, I used one sheet of 8.5x11" deep pink cardstock and my Makes the Cut program. I downloaded the FREE Inkscape file for a "No Glue Party Box" found on the wonderful blog at My Cricut Scrapbooking. I used my Cricut Create A Critter to cut the adorable monkey and the branch behind her. I fussy-cut the pink diaper to make her a baby. The baby monkey hangs through a small hole punched on the edge of the box.


Then I hole-punched a ribbon hole (double hole) in the top handle, folded up the box (or bent up without creasing, would be a better way to describe it), decorated with a bow, and embellished with Martha Stewart self-stick pearls.


This week, I also got in some ADORABLE mylar baby monkey balloons and a matching personalized banner that reads: "Let's Go Bananas! Emily and Josh are having a baby!" Too cute! Meanwhile, thank you to the great website of BigDotofHappiness.com for your fab collection of baby girl monkey party goods!!!



Then, onto the centerpieces...

I made palm trees that the Baby Monkeys can climb on.

I started with styrofoam cone bases, 12" high ($4.99 ea x 6). I purchased two fern fronds for each ($1.99 ea x 12) to add to the top.  Keeping the plastic wrapping on the cone so the styrofoam dust didn't get all over the place, I jabbed each of the fronds into the top of the cone and pushed the stem all the way down the cone. With a little bending, I think the ferns begin to look like palm fronds -- at least a little!

Then I unwrapped the plastic off the cones and covered each of the cones with chocolate brown crepe paper streamers. (It was $0.79/roll at Party City -- you only need one roll for all six centerpieces, with lots leftover.) I figured out if I wrapped the crepe paper from the thinner top to the wider base, the crepe paper adds a nice texture to the "tree" because it doesn't lay flat.

Next, I made a barrel of monkeys, using Cricut Create a Critter again, cut at 2.25" with brown layers #1 and #3, and tan in the center. Some of the monkeys have a black back (layer #1) -- but eventually  I figured out that I liked the brown back, and eyes and nose that show through the layer two cut. The pink diaper was fussy-cut from half of a 3/4" paper punch.

Monkeys play well together, so I made chains of three. Some hold together tail to tail; others are linked by cloth flowers. Some are climbing up vines also cut from the Create a Critter cartridge, some are hot glued to grosgrain ribbon.

Daughter Emily came up with the adorable idea to embellish the monkeys with some of my Creative Charms' July kit brads and gems, as well as some stick-on pearls and rhinestones. I used Stickles in silver to trim out the "diaper pins".

To make it easier to decorate the palm trees on the day of the shower, I decided to make cute little monkey hangers for each trio. I used beading wire, some theme-matching crystals and stitched the 2-3" long bead piece on a silver earring wire I had in my craft stash.

...and still, more crafty ideas!

Last but not least, shortly before the shower, Baby Mama Emily came over to my house to help me make the chocolate-covered pretzel sticks that were part of the "candy buffet" at Emily and Baby Charlotte's showe.




Here's how they turned out -- pretty great, I think! I still want to make more using white chocolate, so hopefully tomorrow night I'll find the time.




Meanwhile, as I was driving home from my day job, I thought about how cool it would be to make little "sour cream containers" for the Hershey's kisses I bought for the candy buffet.


So here they are! I whipped up about a dozen of these in an hour or so ... creating the idea takes the biggest amount of time, I think.




To make these, I cut six equal pieces of paper from a 12x12" sheet (each piece was 6"x4"). I taped one short side and rolled the paper into a tube. Then I pinched the one end shut, using a piece of double-sided tape and a crimper tool. I filled it with 6 Hershey's kisses, pinched and glued the top end sealed (I used double-faced tape), and crimped. Decorated using monkeys from the Cricut Zooballoo cartridge and Creative Charms flowers, ribbons. 

I hope you had fun revisiting the baby shower from 2010 ... and picked up some more ideas. The light-of-my-life, Charlotte, was born a few months after her shower, on December 6.  Now she is 9 months old -- and look what a little charmer she now is!

Charlotte's first time on the slide at our community park!

Playing with my food: Exploring Cricut Cake

Welcome to the "FEEL THE LOVE" Blog Hop (Saturday, February 5) hosted by Jaime at Glitter, Stamps and Paper Oh My.  Jaime issued a challenge -- it's not just cards we're looking for this Valentine's Day, but other gifts "from the heart."   So if the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, what better time to take out my Cricut Cake for its introductory spin?!

That's right, Mr. Smiley (my DH John) bought me a Cricut Cake for my birthday last August, and it took until the dead of winter for me to take it out of its box.  So many toys, so little time! 

So what to make? How about some heart-shaped cookies? I purchased some storemade sugar cookie dough and rolled it out to 1/4" thick, as instructed with the Cricut Cake ... 

Here's a little suggestion: Roll your dough out right onto the cutting board. I only have one Cricut Cake mat and they're not widely available and they're expensive. I found this alternative in my grocery store ... Cut 'n Slice Flexible Cutting Boards by Norpro.  Three came in a pack for $7.99. They were approx. 10"x14" so I just trimmed off 2" to make it fit under the rollers like the standard 12" mat.  These are food safe and ready to use, and worked great -- did not cut through or peel/chip or anything. 

 After rolling out your dough, I suggest chilling it to make it easier to cut (reducing drag). Slip the whole sheet in the freezer for about 10 minutes ... and cut!

 Slow to medium on your speed, and medium to medium high (4'ish) on your pressure ...  I cut the hearts out in a variety of sizes to see which I liked best. The cookies cut cleanly ~ 1" min. as well as larger.  Smaller than 1" had increased drag resulting in an uneven cut of the dough.

To remove the cookies from the mat, I popped the CUT sheet into the freezer again to firm for about 10 minutes. (This is why you'd like more than one mat, to keep your production line going.)  

I laid the cookies out on a parchment-covered cookie sheet to bake.

You can cut much more intricate shapes than just simple hearts.  Here is a sweet image with a knock-out of the word LOVE.  I made this cookie fairly large -- about 4" I believe, so the text would hold together as its own cookie. That cookie is shown at the top of this post.

The nice thing about cutting cookies with the Cricut Cake instead of cookie cutters is the variety of sizes you can control ... and the uniformity of the cuts.

The OTHER nice thing about using dough instead of paper to cut with your Cricut is that you can re-roll your scraps and voila!  Another fresh sheet to cut!  Sure saves on having that drawer full of scrap paper, ehhh?

Now ... on to more adventures with Cricut Cake.  First thing first ... prepare the mat. To get your foods to stick (remember, these mats have no glue .. they're food safe!), use a pastry brush to spread a thin clear layer of Crisco onto your Cricut Cake mat.

Next, I tried pasta sheets.  These skidded on the mat unless I sprayed them with water first.  I think it would be better if I used fresh pasta....

Again, I cut heart shapes out of the lasagna sheets, thinking that I'll make individual layered luscious lasagnas for my honey for Valentine's Day ...

Mostly, it cut very cleanly. However, every once in a while, the sheet shifted so there was a rough or uncut edge to the pasta. Kitchen scissors to the rescue! Again, these are food-safe and clean. Make sure yours are too, if you cut food with your scissors.

I'm on a roll now ... turkey roll, to be precise!  Let's see how deli meat is tackled by Cricut Cake.  The meat stayed firmly to the shortening and was pretty easy to cut. It might be easier to freeze it to add firmness. I also tried cutting salami, but that was WAY too soft and was a cutting disaster ... even clogged my blade. So stick to firmer meats.

Hard cheese was also very easy to cut. In this case, I used sliced deli provolone from a pre-cut package. I cut these hearts at 1". The little hole in the bottom center cut was a natural part of the cheese, unrelated to the cutting process.   I could use both the cut hearts, as well as the off-cuts for a sandwich or a pretty topping for a meat pie?

Can you imagine how much fun you could have making hors d'oeuvres for a special party?  Use card symbols (heart, diamond, spade and club) for a bridge party ... a stork and baby symbols for a baby shower?

Whether on a cracker or toast or on top of a pizza, your deli cuts using your Cricut Cake expand the world where your creativity can have tons of fun!   

Of course, you can always use your Cricut Cake to use it conventionally -- that is, to cut fondant or gum paste to make cake, cookie or cupcake decorations.  Here, I used pink fondant and cut heart shapes for Valentine's Day.  I then used food-dye color markers to decorate the fondant with a handpainted flower and dots.  I plan to put this atop of some Royal Icing on the cookies.

As much fun as I had exploring the different things to cut, here is my recommendation: If you're only interested in cutting a standard shape for which you have or can get a cookie cutter, use a cookie cutter, not your Cricut Cake.  It is much faster especially when cutting cookies or deli meat. 

But if you want to have fun playing with your food (despite what your mother told you about starving children in Third World nations), Cricut Cake opens a whole new universe.

And remember, DO NOT use your standard Cricut or a modified Cricut to cut any food product. That will void your warranty.

The Cricut Cake has been specially made with food-safe and washable features. For example, the blade housing is fully enclosed (no place for germies to enter) so when it gets gunked-up with salami you can wash and disinfect it. There is a piece of silicone over the keyboard, and a rubber housing to surround your cartridge, so no food products (flour, shortening) get stuck in the electronics. Yowzer, you could REALLY mess up a regular Cricut by cutting food. DON'T DO IT!! 

If you're really desperate to use/try Cricut Cake for a week or so, e-mail me privately. I'm willing to loan mine out if you pay shipping from/and back to my home.  Just one of those nice things I'll do for my followers ...

And one more thing: JUST THINK of all of the possibilities beyond food that you can cut if you can roll the medium out to about 1/4" thick.  For example, somewhere down the road I'm going to try polymer clay and ceramic slip. I can then use polymer clay to make Christmas ornaments that dry on their own, or take my slip to my favorite ceramics shop for firing to make tile designs or accents to ceramic pieces I make like vases.  Can you imagine how pretty some of the scroll-work or flower designs would be on the sides of vases??! 

Alright, blog hoppers ... time to head back into the world of paper crafting...

BUT WAIT!  Before you go, I have BLOG CANDY to reward you for slogging through this long post!!  Here's what I have -- REAL CANDY!  OK, and some paper stuff too.  I've been making Valentine's Day candy and I will send you some CHOCOLATE for you to eat, or to pass along to your honey.  I'll also include some things to make your Valentine's sweeter.  HOW TO WIN:  Be or become a follower here, AND leave a comment.  Mr. Smiley will choose a number randomly to pick the winner.

Also, if you're in the mood to win more blog candy, it is not too late to post a comment to my next posting here on "Fairy Cut Fridays".  All followers who comment on that post are entered into a monthly drawing to win a free copy of Fairy Cut Software (better than MTC or SCAL, in my opinion) ... a $99 value!  And YES, you can use Fairy Cut to design or use any .jpg or image file, and cut using your Cricut Cake, too! 

OK ... moving right along ... Your next stop is Jessica and The Overjoyed Scrapper.  Click the name OR this ♥ to jump there.  If you get lost along the way, be sure to hop on back to the start at Jaime's blog at www.glitterstampsandpaperohmy.com.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Participating in my First "Challenge"

Hello Fellow Scrappers,

I needed a little egging on to get back to my paper world, so I turned to one of the many Challenges posted on a variety of blogsites.

One of the blogs I follow is Emma's "My Creative Time" (click to link to the site). Emma has some very cute projects, and has interesting weekly challenges. This week's challenge called for the use of Cricut's Zooballoo cartridge for an animal-themed project.

I decided to try this one out, and made this card in response. I also wanted to challenge myself not to spend quite as much time on each card's concept and production, so I set a timer. Fifteen minutes, start to finish, max. That way, I can learn to keep my quality high, but also be more productive. At the shop where I sell my cards, I cannot keep up with demand -- and it's frustrating for everyone!

So here is the card:

I used the Cricut Zooballoo letter "M" on shift-silhouette to create the monkey. I set the type using a New Font called "Scrawny" and printed out the base card on my HP printer. I used a small kiddie stack to decorate the card and trimmed with a polka-dot ribbon. I handcut the banana and peel, pop-dotting the banana for dimension, and hand-"stitching" (in ink) the peel. I placed the monkey silhouette atop of one of the paper's printed red dots.

I think it turned out pretty cute! It can be used for a general note card, or as a card for a baby shower or new baby.

And in my spare time ....

... I bead!

Now the normal person might ask, "Ellen, with as many jobs as you have, a family depending on you, two dogs and Mr. Smiley, and prepping for your new granddaughter, when do you have spare time??"

Well, that would be an inane question. We do things we love, and make time for them ... because they're relaxing, and an avenue for creativity. In my case, I was tied up in a hospital, tethered to IVs, bored out of my goard, so made three beaded bracelets. I'm thinking that these will be prizes at my daughter's upcoming baby shower.

This bracelet here is pink on the outside and peridot green on the inside, though by using Swarovski crystals, all sorts of shimmer colors show up in a photograph. Another (using the same pattern) is gold and brown smoke.

The third bracelet was a very pretty platinum and grey/pink, but I gave it to one of my nurses with whom I had a warm and wonderful conversation about our daughters and their expectancies. The nurse, Lorrie, needed a *hug*, and what better way to do it with a gift made with love?

My Blog -- In its infancy

Hello, friends and fellow paper artists!

This is my first post on my own CardMonkey blogspot, where I hope to show some cards that I have created. Be gentle with me -- gentle as you would be to this newborn baby -- as I am new to this Blog World.

First up, let me show you the Baby Shower Invitation I am creating to honor and celebrate the upcoming birth of my first grandbaby. He or she is due to be born in late November/early December, so I have a little time to get 60 or so of these done.

The picture above was my "first draft" of the invitation. The final design incorporates the feet under the baby blanket, with only the toes peeking out and curling up over the baby-themed paper. Also, the "hands" will curl up from the inside of the invitation to hold the blanket (top flap) down.

At right, you can see the inside of the invitation. The blanket flaps down, and the text for the shower info appears like a "sandwich board" that the baby is holding.

Here is the recipe for the card:

Using SCAL or MTC, design the baby using one long rectangle, topped with a circle for the head and two circles for the ears. Elongate the ears a bit so they're not unnaturally super-round. I laid my babies out in a way that I could fit three across on a 12x12" sheet. I cut out 60 of the babies, from 20 sheets of flesh-colored cardstock.

I modified the SCAL design to create the blanket, by eliminating the top half of the long rectangle, and the head and ears. I laid out the blankets 6-up on a 12x12" sheet. I cut these from an assortment of baby-patterned papers. I cut the "hands" using a standard 3/4" hole punch.

I used Cricut's Accent Essentials swirly set at 1/2" to Auto-Fill cut from a 6x6" paper. I used "blonde" colored paper to resemble my daughter's hair. For the eyelet lace at the top of the blanket, I cut 1" strips from an 8.5x11" piece of paper, and punched them using Martha Stewart's eyelet Around-The-Corner punch.