This Birthday brought to you by the letter "L" and the number "3"!

Our niece, Layla, recently celebrated her third birthday.  And for the last year she has been telling anyone who would listen that her Aunt Dee was going to make her an Elmo cake and her Aunt Jen was going to make her Elmo cards (invitations) and an Elmo shirt.  Unfortunately, with our recent move happening right before her birthday - she didn't get an Elmo cake made by Aunt Dee.  Aunt Dee did make her Elmo cupcakes, though!  And Aunt Jen managed to get enough of her craft room unpacked to make her an Elmo shirt and a red tutu to go with it!  Fortunately, the invitations were created prior to our move.

I created most of the invitation in Microsoft Publisher and then used my Cricut to cut the letter "L", the number 3 and Elmo.  The letter and number were cut using the Mickey Font cartridge and Elmo came from the Sesame Street Friends cartridge.  The finished invitation is 8 1/2" x 5 1/2".

The t-shirt and tutu turned out really cute and Layla loved them!  The shirt was created using the freezer paper method and I cut Elmo out with the Sesame Street Friends cartridge.  

I had a few problems with this one . . . when I was ironing on the freezer paper, I scorched the shirt.  After I quit crying (it was the night before her birthday party and I had no time to go buy another shirt, wash it and start over!), I did a quick Internet search on how to remove a scorch mark (thank you, Google!) and found a solution to my dilemma!  Hydrogen peroxide will remove scorch marks from white fabric -- just dab the spot with a peroxide soaked paper towel until your stain disappears.  It took out about 95% of the mark -- I REALLY scorched it good.  So I free handed a couple of balloons to cover the rest of the faded mark! 

Just goes to show . . . sometimes a crafting disaster turns out better than your original idea.

Make sure you check back in on Wednesday, December 1st . . . that's challenge day at Cooking with Cricut.  Our challenge theme for this week is:  "Deck the Halls - Trim the Tree".  I created the cutest scrapbook page with one of my favorite pictures of my dear daughter at age 2 1/2.  You'll want to go and see what all of my fellow "chefs" have created too!

I'm baaaaaaack . . . kind of!

Move - completed. 

Craft room set-up - mostly.

Office set-up - mostly.

Kitchen unpacked - mostly.

All the boxes unpacked - not even!

Garage - looks like a tornado whirled thru!

We moved into our new house on October 27th; we finally had everything out of our old house on November 2nd; November 9th Dee's Dad arrived to spend the winter with us; and on November 10th I came down with the flu and have been battling it ever since.  Yesterday I finally was able to stay out of bed most of the day and am feeling a little stronger today.  My family has been hit hard with the crud this Fall -- my son is almost over his bout with pneumonia and yesterday my Mom's doc told her she had pneumonia.  This is my second go-round with the cold/sinus/flu and my youngest daughter was sick for two days at the beginning of our move.  YUCK!  Buy stock in Kleenex . . . we've already blown through three boxes in the last month!

As promised here are the photos of the two Halloween costumes I was commissioned to create.  First a lovely pink & purple butterfly featuring a hand-tied tutu and glittering wings for an adorable two-year old.

And a ladybug costume for a precious baby girl . . . hand-tied tutu, layered wings, and a beanie with antenna.



I'm hoping to participate in next week's challenge over at Cooking with Cricut - make sure you go and check out what my fellow "Chefs" have created this week! They are an incredibly talented group of women!



Moving . . . UGH!

Last Tuesday we found out we were moving and the kicker is we have to be out of our current rental by midnight on Halloween!  How does one move a household of three in 12 days?  Not easily, especially since we've been here five years and it seems that everything has multiplied since we moved in - even though two grown children have flown the coop and taken their stuff with them.  This will be my last post for a little while as I am packing up the craft room (sob!) and my office (double sob!). 

When I come back I'll have a couple of things to share with you -- two adorable Halloween costumes I made and my niece's 3rd birthday invitation.  I've got things for three baby showers to create as well as things for my niece's birthday, cards for six birthdays in November and December . . . oh, yeah . . .  AND Christmas.  (I think the craft room may very well get put back together before the kitchen!)

Melin has graciously allowed me to be in absentia at Cooking with Cricut, but I'll be back for the mid-November challenges.  Go check out her blog -- my fellow Design Team members are among some of the most creative and talented people I've ever had the privilege to craft with!!!

See you soon!