Cooking With Cricut Challenge: It's HOT Outside!

Happy Wednesday and welcome to challenge day at Cooking With Cricut.  Our Design Team was challenged to create a project that celebrated water and all of the fun things to do in and around it.  Being a third generation native Floridian, I have been in and around water all my life!  Currently we have a bit more water than we know what to do with thanks to Tropical Storm Debby.  

Here is what I created for this week's challenge:

(Don't forget -- you can click on the image to enlarge it!)

This double 12" x 12" layout will go in my youngest daughter's scrapbook.  It commemorates her very first trip to the beach when she was 14 months old.  Here's the recipe:

Cricut Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge --

• Sand cut @ 11 1/2" wide (Bazzill card stock - Iced Cocoa)

Cricut Every Day Paper Dolls cartridge --

• Sand Castle cut @ 4 1/2" wide (scrap stash)
• Bucket and Shovel cut @ 2 1/8" high (scraps)

Cricut Create-A-Critter cartridge --

• Crab cut @ 2 1/4" wide (scraps)

Cricut ZooBalloo cartridge --

• Waves cut @ 8" wide (Bazzill card stock - Evening Surf)

Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL) --

• Text - Ravie font cut @ 1 1/4" high (We R Memory Keepers, White Out Collection)
• Starfish from the Summer image library cut @ 1" wide (scraps)

Ribbon scraps, rhinestones, ink, chalk and pen doodling completed this fun layout featuring my little beach baby.

Now it's your turn!  Link up your water-themed project at Cooking With Cricut this week for a chance at being our next Top Chef!  Head on over and check out all of the wonderful things the other Design Team members created.  Thanks for stopping by!

~ Jen


P.S.  I'm linking up to:

1. K. Andrew's Simply Sunday Challenge
2. Jaihart's Sundays Are Lovely Link-Up

Paper Crafting World: Color Challenge

Happy Tuesday and welcome to PaperCraftingWorld.com's weekly challenge!  I'm hanging out with the Design Team girls from Paper Crafting World today  -- their challenge this week was this beautiful color palette that must be used in some way in their project along with a digi or cutting file from PCW.  You could also use small amounts of white, black or Kraft -- but they could not be a main color.

Here is what I came up with . . .

inside reads:  ". . . like a Popsicle on the Fourth of July!"

I used the PCW Popsicle cutting file along with cuts from the Cricut Create-A-Critter cartridge.  All of the papers are from my scrap stash.  I also used some rhinestones, chalk and ink to jazz up this fun card.  The faces were drawn by hand and the text is my handwriting -- I used a black Zig Writer and a white Gelly Roll pen.

Here's the recipe:

• PCW Popsicle cut at 4 1/2" high. (The Popsicle cutting file has three different shaped Popsicles and its only $1.00 to download it!)
• Create-A-Critter  -- Sun cut at 4 1/2" high; Puddle cut at 1" high; and rain drops cut at 5/8" high.
• The card is made from plain white card stock and folded measures 5 1/2" x 4 1/4".

Now it's your turn . . . head on over to PaperCraftingWorld.com and link up your color-inspired project!  And make sure you check out what the Design Team was inspired to created using these fresh and fun summer colors!

~ Jen

P.S.  I'm linking up to:

1. K. Andrew's Simply Sunday Challenge
2. Jaihart's Sundays Are Lovely link-up party

Cooking With Cricut Birthday Blog Hop: Day 2

Welcome back to day two of CookingWithCricut.com and PaperCraftingWorld.com Design Teams' June Blog Hop. It's another day full of great birthday inspiration with different set of designers and projects. If you have come from visiting my dear friend Charlotte at A Little Bit of Detail then you are in the right place! If you would like to start at the beginning of the party, please head over to CookingWithCricut.com.

This month our hop theme is all about Birthdays!  And when Melin discovered that my birthday fell on our scheduled Blog Hop she decided to drag me out from behind the scenes at CWC-PCW and put me in the spotlight (not a place I am too comfortable being).  She then challenged our Designers to make birthday inspired projects with a “Jen” theme in mind. Here is what she said:  Our go-to-gal is a die-hard Florida Gator Fan. So we decided to use elements on our projects that reflected our GATOR FOR LIFE Gal’s FANCY -- Florida, The Florida Gators and anything that would make you think of the Sunshine State. 

So yesterday was my actual birthday and we had 11 adults and 6 children (5 of whom are four years of age and under) over to swim and for a cook-out.  Needless to say, I did not get the project finished that I wanted to share with you today.  However, here are the tags I made for our ice cream sundae bar:

I used the Cricut Tags, Bags, Boxes & More cartridge.  The brownie "flags" were cut at 11 1/4" wide (orange paper) and 9 1/4" wide (white paper) -- then I cut them in half to create the two flags.  The jar labels were cut at 3" high (orange) and 2 3/4" high (white).

Here are the cute little rascals that kept me so busy that I was just too tired to finish my project . . .

8 year old daughter, Demi.

2 year old grandson, Dylan

6 month old nephew, Everett (Rett)

17 month old nephew, Evan

4 1/2 year old niece, Layla

3 year old niece, Lexie

They all LOVED the make-your-own-ice cream sundae bar (so did the adults)!!  It was a wonderful afternoon filled with family, friends and lots of yummy food!

I want to say a HUGE thank you my dear friend Melin and all of the CWC & PCW Design Team members -- thank you, ladies, for being such wonderful friends.  I am truly honored that you all chose to celebrate my birthday and I love all of the beautiful things you made.  I am one lucky gal to have you all in my life -- you have been such a blessing to me!!

I'm the caboose on this party train, but make sure you head over to CWC and leave a comment for a chance to win some great blog candy!  

~ Jen