Spring is in the Air

76 degrees…that is how cold it was tonight on the way home from dinner, SPRING IS DEFINITELY IN THE AIR.  It is not long before Arizona hits the 100 degree mark, and for now we will take the cooler nights as a spring welcome.  I will take the 76 degree nights,  if it means we can hold onto the 87 degree day times for a little longer…

 Yesterday was the first day back from spring break and when I asked my students yesterday, “Name one thing that reminds you of spring time,” I got the normal responses:  “School is in the last nine weeks until summer” & “flowers and bees” & “spring time tanning!”. I did have one student tell me “Easter”, but really their answers were basically the same in all my classes.  My 2^nd hour, being the group of students who always wants to know what I think is a correct answer to questions posed during class, asked me what I thought of when I heard the word spring.

My first thought was that spring time means that it is almost time for boating season…but before I answered with that answer, I blurted out “BUTTERFLIES”, which is my true answer.  My students looked at me like I was absolutely crazy, so I went on to explain that I have always been fascinated by the idea of catching butterflies in a net, and actually got the chance to do so a few springs back on a tour of Agriculture farms in Arizona.

The more I thought about it on the way home, the more I realized that, really, I have always left the butterfly catching to the animals in my life. Watching them try and catch flies and butterflies has always provided me with hours of entertainment, so much so I bought my female bulldog a backpack and a butterfly net two springs ago so I could dress her up for “butterfly catching season”.

Needless to say, my female bullie ate the net, and the backpack has long been lost in the back of the closet, but I still watch them when they start stalking a butterfly. The bulldogs are never quite fast enough, but the new black lab puppy caught her first one the other night.  She had no idea what to do, and you could tell the butterfly was moving around in her mouth, she finally spit it out and then stared at it wishing it to move again. This episode was followed by a beautiful 72 degree evening, the best that spring time has to offer.

When I got to making my spring time cards, the only thing that made sense was a dog catching butterflies. I did end up giving my paper puppy an upper hand by providing the net…

A little info on the card:

Puppy and grass are from Paper Pups and the butterfly is attached a piece of Velcro to keep the card closed

Pink and Glittery As Always

As I sat at my crafting table, desperately trying to come up with a card for my good friends wedding this weekend, my mind kept drawing a blank.  My boyfriend is on a camping trip, and even if he doesn’t know it I bounce ideas off of him for projects until it feels right. So, I started thinking about everything else going on right now: last Saturday before spring break is over and I return to work kept playing over and over in my mind’s eye.

My students are constantly looking for themselves, and trying to impress their classmates. I am sure I was the same way in high school, but it got me thinking about a statement, “Be who you are, not who others believe you are”. So I searched my paper to find something fun, and pink and glittery because that is the sort of mood I have been in lately. Found it, perfect animal print, bright pink, glittery, everything I wanted it to be without knowing it.

Then the hunt was on in my short stack of Cricut cartridges, I found exactly what I needed on my Paisley cartridge (which is strange since I had just finished making our new puppies’ page in my 2010 scrapbook, and her name is Paisley Ann). The saying, “Just Be You”…I mean I was on a roll tonight!

I start putting it all together, and realized that I was still missing some critical parts…sunglasses were a must as I never get far without my own pair, and a bow…a bow only because I have this strange obsession with ribbon. You know the kind of obsession that even when you don’t need it, you have to buy it…especially when it is on sale…and you may have a use for it in the future…maybe…just maybe….

After I had all the critical parts, I texted a picture to my very artistic sister, and she approved without much feedback. I was thrilled since it meant that I was finally on the right track on making projects (not adding to much...but also not having to little on the items…it’s always one or the other!!). So the final project is pictured below…It fits my mood to a T tonight…so hopefully tomorrow I can create that wedding card I’ve been staring at for a week now….

Birthdays are for wishes

In my endless quest to become a better, more risk taking, crafter, I stumbled across a web site that has weekly challenges – the idea is to use your Cricut cutting machine in new and unique ways each week and enter the ideas into a contest.

I decided that this would be a good week to start in on the challenges, knowing that with my work schedule I may or may not be able to participate weekly. But, I am also under the impression that even if I cannot make something each week, these challenges will push me and inspire me to do different more daring things with my crafts.

This week’s just happened to be create a birthday related item. I thought, “Hey this will be easy, there is so much stuff for birthdays” and I was wrong. It took me a while to come up with what I made, and well, it is pretty simple. I did in fact use my Cricut (since I have become a stickler for rules as I have gotten older),but I did glitter the card up and added my own bedazzle pieces! Above is the card I created for the contest.

The web site is: http://fantabulouscricut.blogspot.com/

On a side note: As luck would have it, a good friend was celebrating her birthday this week, and I had been working on the below card for her, and even though it got into the post office late, I am still proud. Her favorite cartoon/Disney character is Tigger, so I had been trying to figure out how to incorporate this into her card. It is pretty simple, but the little Tigger man took me forever to figure out and the cupcake is store bought (aren’t they for most birthday parties now anyway?) I hope that she gets it in the mail soon and that she likes the Tigger I made for her.

Cut Slice and Glitter

 As I embark on this new endeavor I am both scared and happy. Crafts have been part of my life since I can remember, starting with candy cane reindeer and moving up. My mom shared with my sister and I her love of crafts, she taught us to sew on a sewing machine, needle point, paint, work with paper and all around think outside the box whenever we were faced with challenges.

I plan on doing just that. CUT, SLICE and GLITTER anything that I can. Maybe someone out there understands the need to do such things: maybe they will find their way to my spot and identify with me and my crafts.