New desk

I've talked before about how much I love my Cricut, and the only negative about using it is the desk that it sat on.  The desk was small, so the Cricut took up most of the space leaving very little room to lay out the Cricut mat.  Also, the surface of the desk was slanted and because the desk wasn't very tall I spent a lot of time bent over, which is not very good for my back.

Yesterday I found an old desk at a local store that I thought would be perfect!  I bought it for $40, and the owner of the shop delivered it for me which was great since it didn't fit in my car.  I hired my friend's big strong boys and they came over last night and carried the desk into the house and down to the basement to my craft area.

The desk works ever better than I expected!  It's long enough to give me some room to work, it has drawers to hold some of my supplies and one end has shelves which can hold even more stuff!  Here are a few more photos of the desk.

This is the back side of the desk, nicely painted which is good since it can be seen from the rest of the family room.

And here are the open shelves, which you can see I've already filled with pretty things!

My goals is to not put anything under the desk because I had things stored under the old desk and I never used them because I kind of forgot what was under there.

I have quite a mess in the entire family room right now since I've been moving things around so I better get back to work.  Hope you are having a fun, productive Saturday!

Baby Shower

Today I co-hosted a baby shower for this sweet little gal, Blair.  The shower was held at my house, which meant that I had to clean the house, but didn't have to make any food.  Turns out I would rather clean than cook so it worked out well for me.

I also had to decorate the table to make it look festive, and of course everything was pink from the punch to the napkins.  I had a pretty vase of flowers on the table and then I took the birth announcement we had received and scrapbooked this page.  I put the completed page on the table using a picture stand and it worked out really well.

To make the page I used one of my favorite new tools - a Fiskars edge punch, which made the cute scallops you see.  I also used one of my favorite "old" tools, my Cricut, to cut out the flower accents and the letters.  If you are thinking about getting a Cricut I would do nothing but encourage you to do so.  I know they are expensive and I saved for a while before I bought mine, but I use it so much that I know I've already gotten my money's worth and I've only had it for about a year.  I only have two cartridges, the two that came with my Cricut, and I have found that I can do everything I need with those two cartridges.  Every time I see cartridges on sale I look at all of the images and so far I haven't seen anything that I really need.  Sure, it might be nice to have additional fonts and more images choices, but the cartridges are expensive too and I don't think you need to have more than 1 or 2 basic cartridges.

The giveaway on Elise Blaha's blog (the prized is a set of my Shades of embellishments) ends tomorrow, so if you haven't entered yet use the link on the right to go check it out.  I'll continue to sponsor her blog in March (which starts tomorrow!) and I will also be a sponsor on Ali Edward's blog in March.

I have some ideas for some new mini album kits, and now that my vacation is over and the baby shower is over I'll have more time to craft.  YAY me!

Look what I did!

Finally, as promised, a glimpse of the projects I completed a few weeks ago when I went away for the weekend with some friends. As you can see, I managed to accomplish quite a bit! I'm happy to say that a few of these things have already sold, a few have been listed in my shop and several still need decent photos before they can be listed.

We had two Cricuts and several cartridges available that weekend so we had a good time cutting out various shapes and words. Ok, one friend in particular didn't think it was as much fun as it was frustrating . . . but overall we enjoyed it!

I was working on editing photos this morning but I decided that several of the photos will have to be re-taken. I used a different location in my house to take the photos and they just didn't turn out - way too dark. I think I'll go back to my tried and true basement window on the west side of our house. We have a very wide window ledge and the lighting there just works the best. It's a little awkward to get to as my husband has his wooden duck decoy collection displayed right below the window but luckily I was in gymnastics as a kid so I can make it work!

I got a Cricut!

Yes, after wishing, looking, and drooling, I finally got a Cricut! I have used one that a friend of mine has and of course I loved it, and I've had the money saved for a while. But geez, do I really need it? Should I buy new tires for my car instead? Probably, but oh well. Now I have a Cricut! I can't wait to put it to use making all kinds of fun things!